“Why, nurse, what an interest you take in me; I think it very good of you, indeed. Is it so with all the poor fellows who get shut up here?”
“George Thorndyke, let me tell you something which I must before you go away and I lose all trace of you. I knew that picture as soon as I saw it, for I saw it before you were born.”
“Then you knew my mother! Where is she? Say! Is she living?”
“She is here. Can you forgive her and love her?”
They are not alone, so this revelation has to be made with hushed voices and guarded manner; but George Thorndyke says, grasping her hands:
“I would rather you were my mother than any woman I have ever met; and I will work for you all the days of my life.”
“No, George; this is my place, and this is my work.”
“But you must come out of it; you’ll get your death here. Gracious goodness! I can’t take it all in! Why, what a good thing it was for me to get that tumble, as it led me to you!”
And then he questions her very much, and many of his questions are hard to answer. At last he says suddenly:
“But you’re a Catholic, are you not?”