The introduction of a stranger (without references) into the intimacy of the family circle was, as Mrs. Presty viewed it, a crisis in domestic history. Conscience, with its customary elasticity, adapted itself to the emergency, and Linley’s mother-in-law stole information behind the curtain—in Linley’s best interests, it is quite needless to say.
The talk of the two ladies went on, without a suspicion on either side that it was overheard by a third person.
Sydney explained herself.
“If I had led a happier life,” she said, “I might have been able to resist Mr. Linley’s kindness. I concealed nothing from him. He knew that I had no friends to speak for me; he knew that I had been dismissed from my employment at the school. Oh, Mrs. Linley, everything I said which would have made other people suspicious of me made him feel for me! I began to wonder whether he was an angel or a man. If he had not prevented it, I should have fallen on my knees before him. Hard looks and hard words I could have endured patiently, but I had not seen a kind look, I had not heard a kind word, for more years than I can reckon up. That is all I can say for myself; I leave the rest to your mercy.”
“Say my sympathy,” Mrs. Linley answered, “and you need say no more. But there is one thing I should like to know. You have not spoken to me of your mother. Have you lost both your parents?”
“No.”
“Then you were brought up by your mother?”
“Yes.”
“You surely had some experience of kindness when you were a child?”
A third short answer would have been no very grateful return for Mrs. Linley’s kindness. Sydney had no choice but to say plainly what her experience of her mother had been.