Imogen glanced at her earnestly: the reverent expression struck her. "But," she went on, "for the thing itself, the miserable mistake and mortification, I don't think honestly that I was to blame, except that I was silly and, I suppose, vain." Her candour impressed the other favourably. It is a proof of real humility to own one's self _vain_. "You must have been very young," she said almost more gently than she had yet spoken. "Supposing you begin at the _now_; try to put right some of the wrong you _now_ are conscious of. Do not think me officious or presumptuous," she added. Then almost in a whisper, "The dying are privileged, you know." "Oh, don't!" Imogen exclaimed, raising her hand as if to ward off an impending blow. Then she answered by a question, "Shall you be here to-morrow morning, about this time?" "Yes, if it is fine, I think I may say certainly so." "I am going to _think_," said the girl simply. "And perhaps you will let me talk to you a little more. To-morrow is only Thursday, and we don't go till Monday. I do hope I have not tired you?" she added anxiously. "No, truly no. You have interested me very much. And if I can be of even the tiniest bit of help to you, it would be delightful. The feeling one's self _so_ useless, so condemned to lie still, is almost the worst part of it;" and again the colour rushed over her face. "I think just to see you is use," Imogen replied. Then she went home, and she _thought_. And "to-morrow" was fine, and Imogen had not thought in vain, nor had her new friend in any way forgotten her. "I am going to tell you everything," said the girl. "I don't like it at all, even though you do not know my name, and perhaps we may never meet again. But I know I can trust you, and I want you to say plain, even hard things to me, if _you_ think I need them." Then followed the story--simple enough, after all, which we know. The invalid listened intently. Once or twice, when Imogen came to the climax of the changed letters, alluding, though but slightly, to her faint suspicion that all had not been mere accident in the little drama, she started as a restrained exclamation of pity or of indignation, perhaps of both, rose to her lips. But when Imogen had finished, quite finished, though she took her hand and held it, for some moments she did not speak. Then said the girl, waxing impatient, as was her way: "Why don't you say something? I told you I would not mind plain-speaking or hard speaking. Do you think me beneath contempt?"