“I gave up the life on the streets for twa and twa—for nearly four months, Norah. Then my mither took ill and was like to dee. I nursed her for a long while, then the siller gaed awa’ and hunger came in its place. I had never learnt ony trade; there was only one thing to be done, Norah. I went oot tae the streets again, oot to sin knowingly, and what was before an ignorant lassie’s mistake was then and after a fault, black in the eyes of heaven.”
Ellen paused and looked up at the roof. Perhaps she was again seeing herself as she was on that evening long ago, a wistful and pretty girl, a child almost, going out into the streets to earn the money that would buy food and clothing for her ailing mother.
“I came back the next morn, greetin’ a wee, if I remember right, and twa pieces of gold in my pocket. When I came into our room I found my mither lyin’ on her chair by the fire, and she was dead!”
“Poor Ellen,” said Norah in a low voice. “Ye had a hard time of it from the beginnin’.”
“Hard’s not the word,” cried Ellen, and a fierce look came into her eyes. “It was damnable!”
There was silence for a moment, when the two women felt rather than thought. As in a dream, they could hear crowds passing like tides along the narrow lane outside.
“Will God ever forgive us for our sins?” asked Norah.
“Ye have never ceased to be pure in the sight of God, lass,” said Ellen; “and if baith of us are judged accordin’ to our sufferin’s we needna hae muckle fear. That’s the way I look at things, Norah!”
And Ellen, taking up her scissors, restarted her work, a smile almost angelic in its sadness playing in odd little waves over her face. And in the poor woman’s soul, glowing brighter even in misfortune, burned that divine and primary spark which evil and accident could never extinguish.