"I went to America, and for a long time I heard nothing of you, though I longed most ardently to do so. The echoes of the great world did not reach me in the distant sphere of my toil, and I longed to know how the only person with whom I had ever felt true human sympathy was wearing through her day. This may seem to you an unnatural and overstrained sentiment; and so it would be in the mind of any one who had any natural ties, or who was less desolate than I; but you must be able to comprehend my life before you could understand these inconsistencies. Let me leave this, then, unexplained, and tell you that I came back to England, and that I have heard all that has befallen you since I went away. I have never felt anything that has happened to myself in my vagabond life so much. Incidents I heard, but no one could tell me anything of you individually,--of how you were bearing your trials, of what face you showed the world, which would coldly criticise you--a creature as far beyond its comprehension as any angel in the heaven far beyond their sphere."
She spoke with intense feeling, and her fine face glowed with the depth of her sympathy and admiration.
"At last I caught sight of Colonel Alsager."
Georgie blushed, but her visitor did not appear to observe her emotion.
"I knew he could tell me what I thirsted to know, and I went to his hotel on the following day, but failed to see him; and when I sent a note, asking him to let me speak a few words with him, it was returned. Colonel Alsager had left town. I learned that his father was dead, and he, of course, a baronet now; but I heard nothing further--no one could tell me if his absence were likely to be prolonged. I had the strongest, the most insatiable desire to see you, Lady Mitford. I wanted to see the face that I had never forgotten, and find it as beautiful, as good as ever."
Georgie smiled sadly "Ah, Miss Gillespie, I have suffered much, and am greatly changed."
"Only for the better," she said eagerly; "only for the better. Every line in your face is lighted up with spiritual light now. When I saw it last, the girlish softness had not left the features and given the expression fair play."
Her enthusiasm--her feeling--were so real, and there was such a strong dash of the artist in her remarks, that it would have been impossible to resent them. Lady Mitford once more smiled sadly.
"I knew there was no chance that I should see you in any public place--your deep mourning precluded that possibility--and so I resolved to come here and present myself boldly before you. In the ordinary sense of society, between you and me there is a gulf fixed; but I thought your gentleness would span it. It has done so. You have permitted me to speak to you face to face; you have gratified the wish which another might have resented as mere insolent curiosity."
"Why do you speak thus, Miss Gillespie? Why should there be a gulf between you and me? I am not aware of any reason. I do not despise you because you are a governess, because you use the talents and the education you possess to earn an honourable livelihood. Why do you speak thus?"