Mrs. Hesketh seemed to feel that she was pursued. She quickened her step almost into a run, but she was breathless and agitated and laden with a bundle, and in no way capable of outstripping Dora. She paused with a gasp, when the girl laid a hand on her arm.
“Didn’t you hear me call you? You surely could never, never mean to run away from me?”
“Miss Dora, you were always so kind, but I didn’t know who it might be.”
“Oh, Mrs. Hesketh, you can’t know how ill my father is, or you would have wanted to ask for him. He has been ill a month, and I am not allowed to nurse him. I am only allowed to go in and peep at him twice a day. I am not allowed to speak to him, or to do anything for him, or to know——”
Dora paused, choked by the quick-coming tears.
“I am so sorry, miss. I thought as you were happy at least: but there’s nothing, nothing but trouble in this world,” cried Mrs. Hesketh, breaking into a fitful kind of crying. Her face was flushed and heated, the bundle impeding all her movements. She looked round in alarm at every step, and when she saw Miss Bethune’s tall figure approaching, uttered a faint cry. “Oh, Miss Dora, I can’t stay, and I can’t do you any good even if I could; I’m wanted so bad at home.”
“Where are you going with that big bundle? You are not fit to be carrying it about the streets,” said Miss Bethune, suddenly standing like a lion in the way.
The poor little woman leant against a tree, supporting her bundle. “Oh, please,” she said, imploring; and then, with some attempt at self-defence, “I am going nowhere but about my own business. I have got nothing but what belongs to me. Let me go.”
“You must not go any further than this spot,” said Miss Bethune. “Dora, go to the end of the road and get a cab. Whatever you would have got for that where you were going, I will give it you, and you can keep your poor bits of things. What has happened to you? Quick, tell me, while the child’s away.”
The poor young woman let her bundle fall at her feet. “My husband’s ill, and he’s lost his situation,” she said, with piteous brevity, and sobbed, leaning against the tree.