Christie had watched Rachel while she spoke, and spoke to her alone;
her heart yearned toward this one friend, for she still loved her,
and, loving, she believed in her.

"I don't reproach you, dear: I don't despise or desert you, and
though I'm grieved and disappointed, I'll stand by you still,
because you need me more than ever now, and I want to prove that I
am a true friend. Mrs. King, please forgive and let poor Rachel stay
here, safe among us."

"Miss Devon, I'm surprised at you! By no means; it would be the
ruin of my establishment; not a girl would remain, and the character
of my rooms would be lost for ever," replied Mrs. King, goaded on by
the relentless Cotton.

"But where will she go if you send her away? Who will employ her if
you inform against her? What stranger will believe in her if we, who
have known her so long, fail to befriend her now? Mrs. King, think
of your own daughters, and be a mother to this poor girl for their
sake."

That last stroke touched the woman's heart; her cold eye softened,
her hard mouth relaxed, and pity was about to win the day, when
prudence, in the shape of Miss Cotton, turned the scale, for that
spiteful spinster suddenly cried out, in a burst of righteous wrath:

"If that hussy stays, I leave this establishment for ever!" and
followed up the blow by putting on her bonnet with a flourish.

At this spectacle, self-interest got the better of sympathy in Mrs.