The New Magdalen

"For three happy years I lived under that friendly roof. I was between

fifteen and sixteen years of age, when the fatal inheritance from my

mother cast its first shadow on my life. One miserable day the wife's

motherly love for me changed in an instant to the jealous hatred that

never forgives. Can you guess the reason? The husband fell in love with

me.

"I was innocent; I was blameless. He owned it himself to the clergyman

who was with him at his death. By that time years had passed. It was too

late to justify me.

"He was at an age (when I was under his care) when men are usually

supposed to regard women with tranquillity, if not with indifference. It

had been the habit of years with me to look on him as my second father.

In my innocent ignorance of the feeling which really inspired him, I

permitted him to indulge in little paternal familiarities with me, which

inflamed his guilty passion. His wife discovered him--not I. No words

can describe my astonishment and my horror when the first outbreak of

her indignation forced on me the knowledge of the truth. On my knees I

declared myself guiltless. On my knees I implored her to do justice

to my purity and my youth. At other times the sweetest and the most

considerate of women, jealousy had now transformed her to a perfect

fury. She accused me of deliberately encouraging him; she declared

she would turn me out of the house with her own hands. Like other

easy-tempered men, her husband had reserves of anger in him which it was

dangerous to provoke. When his wife lifted her hand against me, he lost

all self-control, on his side. He openly told her that life was worth

nothing to him without me. He openly avowed his resolution to go with me

when I left the house. The maddened woman seized him by the arm--I saw

that, and saw no more. I ran out into the street, panic-stricken. A

cab was passing. I got into it before he could open the house door, and

drove to the only place of refuge I could think of--a small shop, kept

by the widowed sister of one of our servants. Here I obtained shelter

for the night. The next day he discovered me. He made his vile

proposals; he offered me the whole of his fortune; he declared his

resolution, say what I might, to return the next day. That night, by

help of the good woman who had taken care of me--under cover of the

darkness, as if _I_ had been to blame!--I was secretly removed to the

East End of London, and placed under the charge of a trustworthy person

who lived, in a very humble way, by letting lodgings.

"Here, in a little back garret at the top of the house, I was thrown

again on the world--an age when it was doubly perilous for me to be left

to my own resources to earn the bread I ate and the roof that covered

me.