“Let me see your friend, Mercy,” she said, “the lady who has been kind to you.”
“Kind is a poor word. She has been my angel of deliverance. She has saved me from the great dismal swamp of self-abasement and despair.”
Miss Newton had walked briskly ahead with Theodore, so as to leave Lady Cheriton and Mercy together. Mercy ran after her friend, and brought her back a little way, as Lady Cheriton advanced to meet her.
“Miss Newton, my one true and good friend in all this great world of London, and the only friend of my miserable childhood, Lady Cheriton,” said Mercy, looking from one to the other with that intent look of thoughtful minds that work in narrow grooves.
“I thank you for being good to one in whose fate I am warmly interested, Miss Newton,” said Lady Cheriton. “You have done the work of the good Samaritan, and at least one wounded heart blesses you.”
They walked on a little way together, and Lady Cheriton spoke of the old house and the old family, the vanished race with which Sarah Newton had been associated in her girlhood.
“They are all dead, I understand?” she said, in conclusion.
“Yes, there is none left of the old family. They are not a fortunate race, and I fear there are few who regret them; but I cannot help feeling sorry that they are all gone. They have passed away like a dream when one awakens.”
Lady Cheriton lingered on the river-side pathway for nearly half-an-hour, talking to Mercy and Miss Newton. Theodore left them together, after having obtained Mercy’s permission to call at her lodgings on the following afternoon.