"Your unblemished character, and your prospect of being established
honorably in a respectable house."
Grace turned in her chair, and looked wonderingly into the dim corner of
the room.
"How strangely you say that!" she exclaimed. There was no answer; the
shadowy figure on the chest never moved. Grace rose impulsively, and
drawing her chair after her, approached the nurse. "Is there some
romance in your life?" she asked. "Why have you sacrificed yourself to
the terrible duties which I find you performing here? You interest me
indescribably. Give me your hand."
Mercy shrank back, and refused the offered hand.
"Are we not friends?" Grace asked, in astonishment.
"We can never be friends."
"Why not?"
The nurse was dumb. Grace called to mind the hesitation that she had
shown when she had mentioned her name, and drew a new conclusion from
it. "Should I be guessing right," she asked, eagerly, "if I guessed you
to be some great lady in disguise?"
Mercy laughed to herself--low and bitterly. "I a great lady!" she said,
contemptuously. "For Heaven's sake, let us talk of something else!"
Grace's curiosity was thoroughly roused. She persisted. "Once more," she
whispered, persuasively, "let us be friends." She gently laid her hand
as she spoke on Mercy's shoulder. Mercy roughly shook it off. There
was a rudeness in the action which would have offended the most patient
woman living. Grace drew back indignantly. "Ah!" she cried, "you are
cruel."
"I am kind," answered the nurse, speaking more sternly than ever.
"Is it kind to keep me at a distance? I have told you my story."
The nurse's voice rose excitedly. "Don't tempt me to speak out," she
said; "you will regret it."
Grace declined to accept the warning. "I have placed confidence in you,"
she went on. "It is ungenerous to lay me under an obligation, and then
to shut me out of your confidence in return."
"You _will_ have it?" said Mercy Merrick. "You _shall_ have it! Sit down
again." Grace's heart began to quicken its beat in expectation of the
disclosure that was to come. She drew her chair closer to the chest on
which the nurse was sitting. With a firm hand Mercy put the chair back
to a distance from her. "Not so near me!" she said, harshly.
"Why not?"
"Not so near," repeated the sternly resolute voice. "Wait till you have
heard what I have to say."
Grace obeyed without a word more. There was a momentary silence. A faint
flash of light leaped up from the expiring candle, and showed Mercy
crouching on the chest, with her elbows on her knees, and her face
hidden in her hands. The next instant the room was buried in obscurity.
As the darkness fell on the two women the nurse spoke.