Mrs. H. Well, it's not a thing I should have preferred to tell you, but I know how difficult you are to guide ... so I suppose you'll have to know. (Lowering her voice.) It was ten or twelve years ago. I found her horribly ill in a lonely Welsh farmhouse. We had taken the Manor for that August. The farmer's wife was frightened, and begged me to go and see what I thought. I soon saw how it was—I thought she was dying.
Jean. Dying! What was the——
Mrs. H. I got no more out of her than the farmer's wife did. She had had no letters. There had been no one to see her except a man down from London, a shady-looking doctor—nameless, of course. And then this result. The farmer and his wife, highly respectable people, were incensed. They were for turning the girl out.
Jean. Oh! but——
Mrs. H. Yes. Pitiless some of these people are! I insisted they should treat the girl humanely, and we became friends ... that is, "sort of." In spite of all I did for her——
Jean. What did you do?
Mrs. H. I—I've told you, and I lent her money. No small sum either.
Jean. Has she never paid it back?
Mrs. H. Oh, yes, after a time. But I always kept her secret—as much as I knew of it.
Jean. But you've been telling me!