"What is it?"

"Our nearest neighbors were French-Canadians. I learned to speak
the French language."

"Did you return to London?"

"Where else could I go, without a character?" said Mercy, sadly.
"I went back again to the matron. Sickness had broken out in the
Refuge; I made myself useful as a nurse. One of the doctors was
struck with me--'fell in love' with me, as the phrase is. He
would have married me. The nurse, as an honest woman, was bound
to tell him the truth. He never appeared again. The old story! I
began to be weary of saying to myself, 'I can't get back! I can't
get back!' Despair got hold of me, the despair that hardens the
heart. I might have committed suicide; I might even have drifted
back into my old life--but for one man."

At those last words her voice--quiet and even through the earlier
part of her sad story--began to falter once more. She stopped,
following silently the memories and associations roused in her by
what she had just said. Had she forgotten the presence of another
person in the room? Grace's curiosity left Grace no resource but
to say a word on her side.

"Who was the man?" she asked. "How did he befriend you?"

"Befriend me? He doesn't even know that such a person as I am is
in existence."