The New Magdalen

She entered the kitchen. A cry of delight welcomed her appearance--the

mere sight of her composed the men. From one straw bed to another she

passed with comforting words that gave them hope, with skilled and

tender hands that soothed their pain. They kissed the hem of her black

dress, they called her their guardian angel, as the beautiful creature

moved among them, and bent over their hard pillows her gentle,

compassionate face. "I will be with you when the Germans come," she

said, as she left them to return to her unwritten letter. "Courage, my

poor fellows! you are not deserted by your nurse."

"Courage, madam!" the men replied; "and God bless you!"

If the firing had been resumed at that moment--if a shell had struck

her dead in the act of succoring the afflicted, what Christian judgment

would have hesitated to declare that there was a place for this woman

in heaven? But if the war ended and left her still living, where was the

place for her on earth? Where were her prospects? Where was her home?

She returned to the letter. Instead, however, of seating herself to

write, she stood by the table, absently looking down at the morsel of

paper.

A strange fancy had sprung to life in her mind on re-entering the room;

she herself smiled faintly at the extravagance of it. What if she were

to ask Lady Janet Roy to let her supply Miss Roseberry's place? She had

met with Miss Roseberry under critical circumstances, and she had done

for her all that one woman could do to help another. There was in this

circumstance some little claim to notice, perhaps, if Lady Janet had no

other companion and reader in view. Suppose she ventured to plead her

own cause--what would the noble and merciful lady do? She would write

back, and say, "Send me references to your character, and I will

see what can be done." Her character! Her references! Mercy laughed

bitterly, and sat down to write in the fewest words all that was needed

from her--a plain statement of the facts.

No! Not a line could she put on the paper. That fancy of hers was not

to be dismissed at will. Her mind was perversely busy now with an

imaginative picture of the beauty of Mablethorpe House and the comfort

and elegance of the life that was led there. Once more she thought of

the chance which Miss Roseberry had lost. Unhappy creature! what a home

would have been open to her if the shell had only fallen on the side of

the window, instead of on the side of the yard!

Mercy pushed the letter away from her, and walked impatiently to and fro

in the room.

The perversity in her thoughts was not to be mastered in that way. Her

mind only abandoned one useless train of reflection to occupy itself

with another. She was now looking by anticipation at her own future.

What were her prospects (if she lived through it) when the war was over?

The experience of the past delineated with pitiless fidelity the dreary

scene. Go where she might, do what she might, it would always end in the

same way. Curiosity and admiration excited by her beauty; inquiries made

about her; the story of the past discovered; Society charitably sorry

for her; Society generously subscribing for her; and still, through all

the years of her life, the same result in the end--the shadow of the old

disgrace surrounding her as with a pestilence, isolating her among other

women, branding her, even when she had earned her pardon in the sight of

God, with the mark of an indelible disgrace in the sight of man: there

was the prospect! And she was only five-and-twenty last birthday; she

was in the prime of her health and her strength; she might live, in the

course of nature, fifty years more!