"The Lord!" said the girl derisively. "If the Lord had been inclined to help me, he wouldn't have waited till I came to murder. It wasn't the Lord saved me."
"She will say that, and I can't cure her," Nurse Griffiths declared. "But I'm afraid you're feeling the heat, ma'am, and you are not very strong," she added, addressing Edith, who was clinging to the porch for support, looking strangely haggard. "Won't you come in and sit down a bit?"
"No, thank you, it is nothing," Edith answered steadily, recovering herself.
"Will you come and sit down with me on that seat?" she said to Louise, indicating a rustic bench under an old pear tree at the end of the garden. "I want to talk to you."
Nurse Griffiths and Angelica remained in the porch.
"Who is that lady, Miss?" the nurse asked when Edith was out of hearing.
"Lady Menteith," Angelica answered.
The woman threw up her hands. "O Lord! have mercy upon her—and upon us! What a cruel, cruel shame! She's showing her the letter. Eh! it's enough to kill her. You generally know all the mischief that's going, Miss! Why did you bring her here?"
"I wish I had known this, then," said Angelica, whose heart was thumping painfully. "If any harm comes of it, I shall always think it was my fault."
"Well, there's no call to do that if you didn't know," the woman answered.
"I see she was a great lady myself, but I never thought it was her.
Eh! but it's the dirty men makes the misery."