“Yes, yes, yes, but you cannot understand. I cannot explain. Help me to get away from here. I must go—to my friends.”
“Go? To your friends?” said the woman, looking perplexed. “What, have you quarrelled already?”
“Oh, do not ask me—I cannot tell you,” cried Gertrude piteously; “only help me to escape from here, and I will pray for you to my dying day.”
“What good’s that?” said the woman mockingly. “I’m so bad that no one could pray me good. I’m a curse and a misery, and everything that’s bad. Pray, indeed! I’ve prayed hundreds of times that I might die, but it’s no good.”
“Have you no heart—no feeling?” cried Gertrude, going down upon her knees.
“Not a bit,” said the woman bitterly. “They crushed one and hardened the other till it all died.”
“Let me pass you then!” cried Gertrude angrily. “I will not stay.”
“If I let you pass, you could not get away. The doors are locked below, and you could not find the keys. You don’t want to go.”
“What can I say—how am I to tell you that I would give the world to get away from here?” cried Gertrude. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake save me before he comes again!”
“He will not come again. He is downstairs drunk. He is always either drunk or mad. And so you are the new Mrs John Huish?”