“What a soft hand you’ve got!” she said, “It’s almost like a lady’s hand.”
I sighed. “I haven’t been a common servant all my life,” I said. “But never mind me. Do you feel easier?”
“I am another woman, dear,” she replied. “O dear, O dear!”
And the old creature began to cry, and moan, and shake. I pitied her most truly at that moment.
“What are you crying for?” I asked.
“O dear, O dear!” she repeated. “I had a daughter once, who might have looked after me in my old days. My Lizzie! my Lizzie!” She continued to weep in the most distressing manner, calling upon her Lizzie in touching tones. I asked tenderly if her daughter was dead, and her reply was—
“God only knows!”
And then she related to me, often stopping to sob and moan in grief, a sad, sad story of a girl who had left her home, and had almost broken her parents’ hearts. I cannot stop now to tell you the story as this lonely woman told it to me, for my fingers are beginning to pain me with the strain of this long letter, and I have still something more to say which more nearly concerns ourselves.
Bear in mind that from the time Richard Manx had entered the house, no other persons had entered or left it. Had the street door been opened I should for a certainty have remarked it.
Mrs. Bailey had told the whole of the sad story of her daughter’s shame and desertion, and was lying in tears on her bed. I was sitting by her side, animated by genuine sympathy for the lonely old lady. Suddenly an expression of alarm appeared on her face, which gradually turned quite white.