Miss Amory laughed harshly.
“Yes,” she said, “part of the vagueness of the scheme—if it is a scheme—is that it takes half a lifetime to find it out. Before that, we are always either telling ourselves that we are not going to do any harm, or that we are under the guidance of a merciful Providence.”
“That we are not going to do any harm,” Baird repeated, “that we are not going to do any harm. And suddenly it’s done.”
“And can’t be undone,” Miss Amory added. “That’s it.”
The girl, Susan Chapman, was watching them from a window as they walked and talked. She bit her lips anxiously as she stood behind the curtain. She was trying to imagine what they might be saying to each other. Suppose it was something which told against her. And why should it not be so? What good could be said? Janway’s Mills had borne in upon her the complete sense of her outcast state. While professing a republican independence of New England spirit, the place figuratively touched its forehead to the earth before Miss Starkweather. She lived on an income inherited from people who had owned mills instead of working them; who employed—and discharged—hands. She would have been regarded as an authority on any subject, social or moral. And yet it was she who had spoken the first lenient word to a transgressor of the unpardonable type. Susan had been dumfounded at first, and then she had begun to be afraid that the leniency arose from some mistake Miss Amory would presently discover.
“Perhaps he’s heard and he’s telling her now,” she said, breathlessly, as she looked into the garden. “Maybe she’ll come in and order me out.” She looked down at her clean dress, and a sob rose in her throat at the realisation of the mere physical comfort she had felt during the last hour or two—the comfort of being fed and clothed and enclosed within four walls. If she was to be cast back into outer darkness again it would be better to know at once.
When Baird had gone away and Miss Amory was sitting by her window, Susan appeared before her again with an ashen complexion and a set look. She stood a moment, hesitating, her hands clasping her elbows behind her back.
“You want to say something to me?” said Miss Amory.
“Yes,” the girl answered. “Yes, I do—an’ I don’t know how. Are you sure, ma’am, are you sure you know quite how bad I have been?”
“No,” said Miss Amory; “sit down and tell me, Susan.”