"It's Providence!" she said. "Never tell me—! I'm used to this life with its ups and downs, and its glitter of luck ahead. It's in my bones; the restlessness, and all that. I couldn't give it up. I wouldn't. But you—! You didn't guess there was a lawyer tracking me, did you?—that I'm a widow?—that I'm wanted to go and live in England with his mother. Perhaps she'd have to pay somebody if I hadn't a sense of duty.... Me picking up stitches in her knitting, yawning in a parlour with a parrot!—But you'd be safe there, you child—!"
She paused for breath, triumphant.
"I'll tell him to fetch you," she said. "The lawyer. Wait a minute—I have his letter; warning me that there is no money in it—no settlements, as he calls it. I'd be depending on the old woman's chanty, like any stray cat."
She went down immediately on her knees, and plunged into a kit-bag that she had slung on her arm, turning out its miscellaneous load. There was a shiver of glass as she fumbled, spilling things right and left; and the stale air was scented with heliotrope.
"That's all you want," she said, throwing a heap of papers on the bed. "Here's his photograph. You can have it. I can't tell you much about him, but you'll find the clues in there. He was good-looking, too, poor fellow; a great gawk of a good-for-nothing working with his hands. John Barnabas Hill—the boys called him Lord John among themselves, and persuaded me he was incognito. But when I asked him after the wedding if I was now my lady, he just laughed and laughed; and I went right off in a passion and never saw him again. It wasn't his fault. I was just too eager; that's all there was to it. And I'll tell the lawyer I've left you ill in this wilderness. He'll rush to your side, and take it for granted that you are me. Don't look so scared. What's the matter?"
"I can't do it," the girl panted, staring with a dizzy wonder at the casual Samaritan on her knees. Surely the lamp was sinking, the darkness seemed dangerously near, the kneeling figure brilliant in a blur. She tried to keep a picture of that kind human face wherewith to fill the darkness, while instinctively repudiating her mad suggestion.
"Rubbish!" said the woman. "It's the simplest thing. You do nothing.—And you're an actress."
"But I cannot," the girl said over and over again, holding fast.
"You'll hurt nobody," urged the woman, attaining to some imperfect apprehension of an attitude of mind that would not, even in extremity, buy help with falsehood. "If I'm willing to have you stand in my shoes, who else has a right to grumble? It's perfectly fair all round. Look! I'm stuffing these papers under your pillow. I'll tell them all outside that an English lawyer is coming for you, and that'll make things easy. Don't hinder me leaving you with a clear conscience. I've been your friend, haven't I? Hush, hush! I tell you you must.... I'll not let you die in this den. I'll not be haunted——!"
There was a tramping in the bar without. They were going. She tumbled her belongings into the bag, and clapped it shut. The rest of them were calling her.