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Grace turned in her chair, and looked wonderingly into the dim corner of the room.

'How strangely you say that!' she exclaimed. There was no answer; the shadowy figure on the chest never moved. Grace rose impulsively, and drawing her chair after her, approached the nurse. 'Is there some romance in your life?' she asked. 'Why have you sacrificed yourself to the terrible duties which I find you performing here? You interest me indescribably. Give me your hand.'

Mercy shrank back, and refused the offered hand.

" Are we not friends?' Grace asked in astonishment.

6 We never can be friends.'

"Why not?'

The nurse was dumb. She had shown a marked hesitation when she had mentioned her name. Remembering this, Grace openly avowed the conclusion at which she had arrived. Should I be guessing right,' she asked, "if I guessed you to be some great lady in disguise?' Mercy laughed to herself-low and bitterly. I a great lady!' she said contemptuously. For heaven's

sake let us talk of something else!'

Grace's curiosity was thoroughly roused. She persisted. 'Once more,' she whispered persuasively, 'let us be friends.' She gently laid her arm as she spoke on Mercy's shoulder. Mercy roughly shook it off. There was a rudeness in the action which would have offended the most patient woman living. Grace drew back indignantly.

Ah!' she cried, 'you are cruel.'

'I am kind,' answered the nurse, speaking more sternly than ever.

'Is it kind to keep me at a distance? I have told you my story.'

The nurse's voice rose excitedly. "Don't tempt me to speak out,' she said; 'you will regret it.'

Grace declined to accept the warning. I have placed confidence in you,' she went on. 'It is ungenerous to lay me under an obligation and then to shut me out of your confidence in return.'

'You will have it?' said Mercy Merrick. "You shall have it! Sit down again.' Grace's heart began to quicken its beat in expectation of the disclosure that was to come. She drew her chair closer to the chest on which the nurse was sitting. With a firm hand Mercy put the chair back to a distance from her. 'Not so near me!' she said harshly.

'Why not?'

'Not so near,' repeated the sternly resolute voice "Wait till you have heard what I have to say.'

Grace obeyed without a word more. There was a momentary silence. A faint flash of light leapt up from the expiring candle, and showed Mercy crouching on the chest, with her elbows on her knees, and her face hidden in her hands. The next instant the room was buried in obscurity. As the darkness fell on the two women the nurse spoke.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

MAGDALEN-IN MODERN TIMES.

WHEN your mother was alive were you ever out with her after nightfall in the streets of a great city?'

In those extraordinary terms Mercy Merrick opened the confidential interview which Grace Roseberry had forced on her. Grace answered simply, I don't understand you.'

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'I will put it in another way,' said the nurse. unnatural hardness and sternness of tone passed away from her voice, and its native gentleness and sadness returned, as she made that reply. You read the newspapers like the rest of the world,' she went on; have you ever read of your unhappy fellow-creatures (the starving outcasts of the population) whom Want has betrayed to Sin ?'

Still wondering, Grace answered that she had read of such things in newspapers and in books.

6

Have you heard-when those starving and sinning fellow-creatures happen to be women-of Refuges established to protect and reclaim them?'

The wonder in Grace's mind passed away, and a vague suspicion of something painful to come took its place. These are extraordinary questions,' she said, nervously. What do you mean?'

6

'Answer me,' the nurse insisted. 'Have you heard of the Refuges? Have you heard of the Women?'

'Yes.'

'Move your chair a little farther away from me.' She paused. Her voice, without losing its steadiness, fell to its lowest tones. 'I was once one of those women, she said quietly.

Grace sprang to her feet with a faint cry. She stood petrified-incapable of uttering a word.

'I have been in a Refuge,' pursued the sweet sad voice of the other woman. 'I have been in a Prison. Do you still wish to be my friend? Do you still insist on sitting close by me and taking my hand?' She waited for a reply, and no reply came. "You see you were wrong,' she went on gently, when you called me cruel-and I was right when I told you I was kind.' At that appeal, Grace composed herself, and spoke. 'I don't wish to offend you,' she began coldly.

Mercy Merrick stopped her there.

6

'You don't offend me,' she said, without the faintest note of displeasure in her tone. I am accustomed to stand in the pillory of my own past life. I sometimes ask myself if it was all my fault. I sometimes wonder if Society had no duties towards me when I was a child selling matches in the street-when I was a hard-working girl, fainting at my needle for want of food.' Her voice faltered a little for the first time as it pronounced those words; she waited a moment and recovered herself. It's too late to dwell on these things, now,' she said resignedly. "Society can subscribe to reclaim me-but Society can't take me back. You see me here in a place of trust-patiently, humbly, doing all the good I can. It doesn't matter! Here,

or elsewhere, what I am can never alter what I was. For three years past all that a sincerely penitent woman can do I have done. It doesn't matter. Once let my past story be known, and the shadow of it covers me; the kindest people shrink.'

She waited again. Would a word of sympathy come to comfort her from the other woman's lips? No! Miss Roseberry was shocked; Miss Roseberry was confused. I am very sorry for you,' was all that Miss Roseberry could say.

6 Everybody is sorry for me,' answered the nurse, as patiently as ever; 'everybody is kind to me. But the lost place is not to be regained. I can't get back! I can't get back ;' she cried, with a passionate outburst of despair-checked instantly, the moment it had escaped her. Shall I tell you what my experience has been ?' she resumed. Will you hear the story of Magdalen-in modern times?'

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Grace drew back a step; Mercy instantly understood

'I am going to tell you nothing that you need shrink from hearing,' she said. A lady in your position would not understand the trials and the struggles that I have passed through. My story shall begin at the Refuge. The matron sent me out to service with the character that I had honestly earned-the character of a reclaimed woman. I justified the confidence placed in me; I was a faithful servant. One day, my mistress sent for me -a kind mistress, if ever there was one yet. "Mercy, I am sorry for you; it has come out that I took you from a Refuge; I shall lose every servant in the house;

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