‘Yes, I will see her,’ said Nancy, when she had frowned in brief reflection.
Mary led away the little boy, and, a moment after, introduced Jessica Morgan. At the appearance of her former friend, Nancy with difficulty checked an exclamation; Miss. Morgan wore the garb of the Salvation Army. Harmonious therewith were the features shadowed by the hideous bonnet: a face hardly to be recognised, bloodless, all but fleshless, the eyes set in a stare of weak-minded fanaticism. She came hurriedly forward, and spoke in a quick whisper.
‘I was afraid you would refuse to see me.’
‘Why have you come?’
‘I was impelled—I had a duty to perform.’
Coldly, Nancy invited her to sit down, but the visitor shook her head.
‘I mustn’t take a seat in your house. I am unwelcome; we can’t pretend to be on terms of friendliness. I have come, first of all,’—her eyes wandered as she spoke, inspecting the room,—‘to humble myself before you—to confess that I was a dishonourable friend,—to make known with my lips that I betrayed your secret—’
Nancy interrupted the low, hurrying, panting voice, which distressed her ear as much as the facial expression that accompanied it did her eyes.
‘There’s no need to tell me. I knew it at the time, and you did me no harm. Indeed, it was a kindness.’
She drew away, but Jessica moved after her.