She said it with an impartiality so serenely free from condemnation that Susan’s obedient sitting down was almost entirely the result of not being able to stand up. She, so to speak, fell into a chair and leaned forward, covering her face with her hands.
“I don’t believe you know,” she whispered.
“By experience I know next to nothing,” Miss Amory answered, “but my imagination and my reason tell me a great deal. You were not married and you had a child. You lost your health and your work——”
“I would have worked,” said the girl from behind her hands, sobbingly, but without tears. “Oh, I would have worked till I dropped—I did work till I dropped. I kept fainting—Oh! I would have been glad and thankful and grateful——”
“Yes,” said Miss Amory, “life got worse and worse—they all treated you as if you were a dog. Those common virtuous people are like the torturers of the Inquisition. You were hungry and cold—cold and hungry——”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Susan moaned. “You don’t know. When you get sick and hollow and cramped, and stagger about in your bare room—and call out to yourself to ask what made you and where is it. And the wind’s like ice—and you huddle in a heap——”
“And there are lights in the streets,” said Miss Amory, “and it seems as if there must be something there to be given to you by somebody—somebody. And you go out.”
Susan got up, panting, and stared at her.
“You do know,” she cried, almost with passion. “Somehow you’ve found out what it’s like. I wanted you to know. I don’t want you—not to understand and then of a sudden to send me away. I’m so afraid of you sending me away.”
“I shall not send you away for anything you have done in the past,” said Miss Amory.