“About myself?” she said wonderingly.
“Yes; I ask you no questions about your friends, or your reasons for taking up the life to which you have devoted yourself; but I am interested in you and your future. Do you intend to go on attending the sick and suffering?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Good; but not like this. You are young and beautiful, and at all hours you are going about here alone.”
“I have no fear,” she said, smiling. “The poor people here respect me.”
“Yes; and, to the honour of rough manhood, I believe, my child, that there are hundreds who would raise a hand for your protection; but the time will come when you will meet with insult from some drink-maddened brute. You must give it up. Your presence is so much light in these homes of darkness, but—you have interested me, as I tell you.”
She looked at him searchingly.
He read her thoughts and smiled.
“I am speaking as your grandfather might. Let me advise you, my child. This must not go on.”
“I thank you,” she replied; “but I have devoted myself to this life, and I cannot turn back.”