"Was there nothing for me?"
"Yes. She said, "Tell her that I have learnt by the bitterest of all
experience the pain I have given her, and the wrong I have done!"
Then there was something about being so utterly past forgiveness that
she could not come to ask it. Oh, don't cry so, Mother Carey, we can
write and get her back, and I will send her the passage money."
"Ah! yes, write!" cried out the mother, starting up. "'When he was
yet a great way off.' Ah! why could she not remember that?" But as
she sat down to her table, "You know her address?"
"Yes, certainly, I went to her lodgings once or twice; such a little
bit of a room up so many stairs."
"And you did not hear how that man, her husband, died?"
"I don't know whether he is dead," said this most unsatisfactory
informant. "She does not wear black, nor a cap, and I am almost sure
that he has run away from her, and that is the reason she cannot use
her own name."
"Elfie!"
"O, I thought you knew! She calls herself Mrs. Harte. She took my
passage in that name, and that must be why my things have never come.
Yes, I asked her why she did not set up for a lady doctor, and she
said it was impossible that she could venture on showing her
certificates or using her name-—either his or hers.
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