'Twas but a minute of madness. You've saved him right enough."
"I was not blaming him. I understand--I understand."
He looked at her clearly. She was healthy and fine-looking, with large,
eloquent eyes. Her dress was severe and quiet, as became her
occupation--a plain, dark grey, but the shapely fulness of the figure
gave softness to the outlines. It was no wonder Jasper Kimber wished to
marry her; and, if he did, the future of the man was sure. She had a
temperament which might have made her an adventuress--or an opera-singer.
She had been touched in time, and she had never looked back.
"You are with Lady Eglington now, I have heard?" he asked.
She nodded.
"It was hard for you in London at first?"
She met his look steadily. "It was easy in a way. I could see round me
what was the right thing to do. Oh, that was what was so awful in the old
life over there at Heddington,"--she pointed beyond the hill, "we didn't
know what was good and what was bad. The poor people in big
working-places like Heddington ain't much better than heathens, leastways
as to most things that matter.
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