"And then she would come to you—though welcome to share along with us, and you can see for yourself it's a good business—and when that little bit was left her, of course, she'd no need to work, so she came home here, and I must say she's always been as handy a girl and obliging as you could wish, but wandering, too, in her thoughts. Always pens and ink. I shouldn't wonder but what she wrote poetry. Yards and yards of writing she does. I don't know what she does with it all."
But Mrs. Despard knew.
Mrs. Eden talked on gaily and gladly—till not even a straw was left for her hearer to cling to.
"Thank you very much," she said. "I see it was all a mistake. I must have been wrong about the address." She spoke hurriedly—for she had heard in the shop a step that she knew.
For one moment a white face peered in at the glass door—then vanished; it was Miss Eden's face—her face as it had been when she told of her lost lover who died waving his sword at Elendslaagte! But the telling of that tale had moved Mrs. Despard to no such passion of pity as this. For from that face now something was blotted out, and the lack of it was piteous beyond thought.
"Thank you very much. I am so sorry to have troubled you," she said, and somehow got out of the plush parlour, and through the shop, fruit-filled, orange-scented.
At the station there was still time, and too much time. The bookstall yielded pencil, paper, envelope, and stamp. She wrote—
"Ella, dear, whatever happens, I am always your friend. Let me know—can I do anything for you? I know all about everything now. But don't think I'm angry—I am only so sorry for you, dear—so very, very sorry. Do let me help you."
She addressed the letter to Miss Eden at the greengrocer's. Afterwards she thought that she had better have left it alone. It could do no good, and it might mean trouble with her sister-in-law, for Miss Eden, late Mrs. Cave, the happy wife and mother. She need not have troubled herself—for the letter came back a week later with a note from Mrs. Eden of the bursting, bright-buttoned, velvet bodice. Ellen had gone away—no one knew where she had gone.