"No, no; but I could tell that you were——" she hesitated. "It was at Ilkley that I met you. It's coming back to me. You were not then with Mrs. Tailleur, I think? You were with an invalid lady?"
"Yes; I was until I broke down."
"May I ask if you knew Mrs. Tailleur before you came to her?"
"No. I knew nothing of her. I know nothing now."
"Oh," said the old lady. It was as if she had said: that settles it.
The wool was disentangled. It was winding them nearer and nearer.
"Have you been with her long?"
"Not more than three months."
There were only five inches of wool between them now. "Do you mind telling me where you picked her up?"
Miss Keating remembered with compunction that it was Kitty who had picked her up. Picked her up, as it were, in her arms, and carried her away from the dreadful northern Hydropathic where she had dropped, forlorn and exhausted, in the trail of her opulent invalid.