There was a blank pause. My lady covered her face with both hands, and again that convulsive shudder shook her from head to foot.
"She is very penitent, my lady," Mr. Parmalee said, in a softer tone. "She is very poor, and ill and heart-broken. Even you, my lady, might pity and forgive her if you saw her now."
"For Heaven's sake, hush! I don't want to hear. Tell me how you met her first. I never heard your name until that day in the library."
"No more you didn't," said the artist. "You see, my lady, it was pure chance-work from first to last. I was coming over here on a little speculation of my own in the photographic line, and being low in pocket and pretty well used to rough it, I was coming in the steerage. There was a pretty hard crowd of us—Dutch and Irish and all sorts mixed up there—an' among 'em one that looked as much out of her element as a fish out of water. Any one could tell with half an eye she'd been a lady, in spite of her shabby duds and starved, haggard face. She was alone. Not a soul knew her, not a soul cared for her, and half-way across she fell sick and had like to died."
Mr. Parmalee paused. My lady stood before him, ashen, white to the lips, listening with wild, wide eyes.
"Go on," she said, almost in a whisper.
"Well, my lady," Mr. Parmalee resumed, modestly, "I'm a pretty rough sort of a fellow, as you may see, and I hain't never experienced religion or that, and don't lay claim to no sort of goodness; but for all that I've an old mother over to home, and for her sake I couldn't stand by and see a poor, sufferin' feller-critter of the female persuasion and not lend a helping hand. I nussed that there sick party by night and by day, and if it hadn't been for that nussin' and the little things I bought her to eat, she'd have been under the Atlantic now, though I do say it."
My lady held out her hand, aglitter with rich rings.
"You are a better man than I took you for," she said softly. "I thank you with all my heart."
Mr. Parmalee took the dainty hand, rather confusedly, in his finger-tips, held it a second, and dropped it.