"Did you return to London?"
"Where else could I go, without a character?" said Mercy, sadly. "I went
back again to the matron. Sickness had broken out in the Refuge; I made
myself useful as a nurse. One of the doctors was struck with me--'fell
in love' with me, as the phrase is. He would have married me. The nurse,
as an honest woman, was bound to tell him the truth. He never appeared
again. The old story! I began to be weary of saying to myself, 'I can't
get back! I can't get back!' Despair got hold of me, the despair that
hardens the heart. I might have committed suicide; I might even have
drifted back into my old life--but for one man."
At those last words her voice--quiet and even through the earlier part
of her sad story--began to falter once more. She stopped, following
silently the memories and associations roused in her by what she had
just said. Had she forgotten the presence of another person in the room?
Grace's curiosity left Grace no resource but to say a word on her side.
"Who was the man?" she asked. "How did he befriend you?"
"Befriend me? He doesn't even know that such a person as I am is in
existence."
That strange answer, naturally enough, only strengthened the anxiety of
Grace to hear more. "You said just now--" she began.
"I said just now that he saved me. He did save me; you shall hear
how. One Sunday our regular clergyman at the Refuge was not able to
officiate. His place was taken by a stranger, quite a young man. The
matron told us the stranger's name was Julian Gray. I sat in the back
row of seats, under the shadow of the gallery, where I could see him
without his seeing me. His text was from the words, 'Joy shall be in
heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine
just persons, which need no repentance. 'What happier women might have
thought of his sermon I cannot say; there was not a dry eye among us
at the Refuge. As for me, he touched my heart as no man has touched
it before or since. The hard despair melted in me at the sound of his
voice; the weary round of my life showed its nobler side again while he
spoke. From that time I have accepted my hard lot, I have been a patient
woman. I might have been something more, I might have been a happy
woman, if I could have prevailed on myself to speak to Julian Gray."
"What hindered you from speaking to him?"
"I was afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid of making my hard life harder still."
A woman who could have sympathized with her would perhaps have guessed
what those words meant. Grace was simply embarrassed by her; and Grace
failed to guess.