"I deceived you before. I—I—should be deceiving you again. If you knew—all, you would not ask me."
"I think I should, Milly. Perhaps I know more of your story than you have told me. But—at present, at any rate—I do not want to know more. I am not going to question you about the past. Because you cannot undo what is past, dear, however much you try, but you can live as if it had never happened; or, better still, you can live a nobler life than you had strength to live before. Sorrow makes us stronger, Milly, if we take it in the right way. You have your little one to live for; and you must be brave, and strong, and good, for her sake. Will you not try? Will it not be easier now to look forward than to look back? I used to teach you out of an old Book that speaks of 'forgetting the things that are behind.' You must forget the things that lie behind you, Milly, and press forward to the better life that lies before you now."
The girl listened with an awed look, upon her face.
"I am afraid," she murmured.
"Forget your fear, dear, with the other things that you have to forget, and gather up your strength to make your little girl's life a good and happy one. In that way, good will come out of evil—as it so often does. Will you try?"
"Yes," said Milly, "I'll try—if you will help me—and—forgive me."
"You will come with me, then," Lettice rejoined, in a more cheerful tone. "You can bring your child with you, and you shall have money enough to clothe her and yourself; but you know, Milly, you must be ready to work and not to be idle. Then I shall be able to help you."
Milly was glad enough to be persuaded. She had learned a sad and bitter lesson, but she was the wiser for it.
"I shall be able to work better for you than I did at Maple Cottage," she said, with touching humility. "You see I know more than I did, and I shall have more heart in my work. And—" with sudden vehemence—"I would work for you, Miss Lettice, to my life's end."
So it was arranged that they were to go up to London together. Mrs. Chigwin moaned a little about her prospect of loneliness. "But there," she said, "I am not going to make the worst of it. And nobody that has a garden is ever really lonely, unless she has lost her self-respect, or taken to loving herself better than her fellow-creatures. By which," she added, "I do not mean snails and sparrows, but honest and sensible flowers."