The New Magdalen

t. The rain was po

ontier. In the struggle that followed, the French had (for once) got the better of the enemy. For the time, at least, a few hundreds out of the host of the invaders had been

rner opposite to him was the miller’s solid walnut-wood bed. On the walls all around him were the miller’s colored prints, representing a happy mixture of devotional and domestic subjects. A door of communication leading into the kitchen of the cottage had been torn from its hinges, and used to carry the men wounded in the skirmish from the field. They were now comfortably laid at rest in the kitchen, under the care of the French surgeon and the English nurse att

placed at his side, Captain Arnault was interrupted by the appearance of an intruder in the room. Surgeon Surville, entering f

said the cap

plied the surgeon. “Are

know?” inquired the

kitchen, now the hospital

“They dread a surprise, and they ask me if there is any reasonable ho

d his shoulders. Th

ought to kno

ld them up and shook them impatiently as he spoke. “They give me no information that I can rely on. For all I can tell to the contrary, the main body of t

n Arnault got on his feet, drew the hood of his gre

u going?” ask

t the ou

his room for a

Are you thinking of moving an

he kitchen is not quite the place for her. She would be more c

me in, if they are rash enough to trust themselves here with you.” He checked himself on the point of going out, and looked back dis

do you

pointed significantly to

or later these ladies of yours will feel tempted to open that shutter. Tell them I don’t want the l

uri

.” With that consolatory remark he unlocked t

e canvas screen and c

ve you time to ta

n underlying melancholy in it, plainly disting

“and bring the English lady with you.

canvas, and the t

he lines of her finely proportioned face, which made her irresistibly striking and beautiful, seen under any circumstances and clad in any dress. Her companion, darker in complexion and smaller in stature, possessed attractions which were quite marked enough to account for the surgeon’s polite anxiety to shelter her in the captain’s room. The common consent of mankind would have declared her to be an unusually pretty woman. She wore the large gray

a Frenchman who is devoted to you!” He gallantly emphasized his last words by raising the hand of the English lady to his lips. At the moment when he kissed it the canvas screen was again drawn aside. A person in the service of the ambulance appeared, announcing that a bandage ha

chair, madam?”

e young lady, cordially. “My name is

,” she said, and hesitated again. “Call me ‘Mercy M

name? Miss Roseberry did not wait to ask herself these questions. “How can I thank

said Mercy Merrick, a little

I myself in a strange country at nightfall, robbed of my money and my luggage, and drenched to the skin by the pouring rain! I am indebted to you for shelter

seated herself, at some little distance, on an old chest in a c

mpanion seated in the obscurest corner of the room. “That wretched candle hardly gives any light,” she said, impatiently. “It

she answered. “We must be patient, even if we are left in the dark. Tell me,” she went on,

ered the question. Grace’s momentar

s,” she said, “for r

e other. “Without an

tor — my father — in the English burial-ground at Rome,” sh

ed its position on the chest. She had started

w Canada?”

answer — reluctantly g

ever near

thin a few miles

he

back into her corner and changed the subject. “Your relat

of Italy, by the doctor’s advice. His death has left me not only friendless but poor.” She paused, and took a leather letter-case from the pocket of the large gray cloak which the nur

held it up in the deepening obscurity of the

land — a connection of his by marriage, whom I have never seen. The lady has consented to receive me

no other

m absolutely dependent on this stranger, who receives me for my father’s sake.” She put the letter-case back in the pocket

ered her suddenly and bitte

housands of miserable women who would ask for no

there possibly be to en

our prospect of being established

and looked wonderingly into

lsively, and drawing her chair after her, approached the nurse. “Is there some romance in your life?” she asked. “Why have you

k, and refused t

ds?” Grace asked,

never be

y n

e had mentioned her name, and drew a new conclusion from it. “Should I be guessing

I a great lady!” she said, contemptuously. “Fo

he gently laid her hand as she spoke on Mercy’s shoulder. Mercy roughly shook it off. There was a rudeness in the action

the nurse, speaking

e at a distance? I ha

. “Don’t tempt me to speak out,”

in you,” she went on. “It is ungenerous to lay me under an obl

eat in expectation of the disclosure that was to come. She drew her chair closer to the chest on which the nurse

y n

nly resolute voice. “Wait till y

candle, and showed Mercy crouching on the chest, with her elbows on her knees, and her face hidden in her hands. The