"No one. Help such as I want is not easy to find."
"Oh, let me come back!—I am not married.—No, no, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I am no worse than I ever was. I'll tell you everything—the whole silly, wretched story."
She told it, blurring only her existence of the past three months.
"I would have come before, but I was so bitterly ashamed. I ran away so disgracefully. Now I'm penniless—all but suffering hunger. Will you have me again, Mrs. Halliday? I've been a horrid fool, but—I do believe—for the last time in my life. Try me again, dear Mrs. Halliday!"
There was no need of the miserable tears, the impassioned pleading. Her home received her as though she had been absent but for an hour. That night she knelt again by her bedside in the little room, and at seven o'clock next morning she was lighting fires, sweeping floors, mute in thankfulness.
Halliday heard the story from his wife, and shook a dreamy, compassionate head.
"For goodness' sake," urged the practical woman, "don't let her think she's a martyr."
"No, no; but the poor girl should have her taste of happiness."
"Of course I'm sorry for her, but there are plenty of people more to be pitied. Work she must, and there's only one kind of work she's fit for. It's no small thing to find your vocation—is it? Thousands of such women—all meant by nature to scrub and cook—live and die miserably because they think themselves too good for it."
"The whole social structure is rotten!"
"It'll last our time," rejoined Mrs. Halliday, as she gave a little laugh and stretched her weary arms.
