to the village Mrs. Pendyce found herself, for the
first time since she had begun this practice, driven by her own trouble
over that line of diffident distrust which had always divided her from
the hearts of her poorer neighbours. She was astonished at her own
indelicacy, asking questions, prying into their troubles, pushed on by a
secret aching for distraction; and she was surprised how well they took
it--how, indeed, they seemed to like it, as though they knew that they
were doing her good. In one cottage, where she had long noticed with
pitying wonder a white-faced, black-eyed girl, who seemed to crouch away
from everyone, she even received a request. It was delivered with
terrified secrecy in a back-yard, out of Mrs. Barter's hearing.

"Oh, ma'am! Get me away from here! I'm in trouble--it's comin', and I
don't know what I shall do."

Mrs. Pendyce shivered, and all the way home she thought: 'Poor little
soul--poor little thing!' racking her brains to whom she might confide
this case and ask for a solution; and something of the white-faced,
black-eyed girl's terror and secrecy fell on her, for, she found no one
not even Mrs. Barter, whose heart, though soft, belonged to the Rector.
Then, by a sort of inspiration, she thought of Gregory.

'How can I write to him,' she mused, 'when my son----'

But she did write, for, deep down, the Totteridge instinct felt that
others should do things for her; and she craved, too, to allude, however
distantly, to what was on her mind. And, under the Pendyce eagle and the
motto: 'Strenuus aureaque penna', thus her letter ran:
"DEAR GRIG,

"Can you do anything for a poor little girl in the village here who is
'in trouble'?--you know what I mean. It is such a terrible crime in this
part of the country, and she looks so wretched and frightened, poor
little thing! She is twenty years old. She wants a hiding-place for her
misfortune, and somewhere to go when it is over. Nobody, she says, will
have anything to do with her where they know; and, really, I have noticed
for a long time how white and wretched she looks, with great black
frightened eyes. I don't like to apply to our Rector, for though he is a
good fellow in many ways, he has such strong opinions; and, of course,
Horace could do nothing. I would like to do something for her, and I
could spare a little money, but I can't find a place for her to go, and
that makes it difficult. She seems to be haunted, too, by the idea t