It was obvious that she was a lady, but her speech had already told me that. What amazed me most where all amazed me was her self-possession.
I wondered what her impression of me was, as we sat, such a strangely assorted couple, one on each side of the fire. Did I indeed seem to her the quixotic, impetuous, and yet withal dreamy creature which my books show me to be? But I have often been told by those who know me well that I am much more than my books.
"I have not sat by a fire for how many months?" she said, her black eyes on the logs. "Let me see, last time was in a lonely cottage on the Cotswolds. It was a night like this, but colder, and a helpless old couple let me in, and allowed me to dry my clothes, and lie by their fire all night. Very unwise of them, wasn't it? I might have murdered them in their beds."
I began to feel rather uncomfortable.
"You are not undergoing a sentence for murder, are you?" I asked.
She looked at me for a moment, and then said:
"The desperate creature who escaped from gaol three days ago, and who was in for life for the murder of the man she lived with, and whose convict clothes I am wearing—whose clothes, I mean, are at this moment drying before your kitchen fire—is not the same woman who is now drinking your excellent coffee."
"Do you mean to tell me you have never been in prison?"
"Yes, for a year; but I served my time and finished it four years ago."
I wrung my hands. I was deeply disappointed in her. Her transparent duplicity, which could impose on no one, not even so unsuspicious a nature as mine, hurt me to the quick.