"You possess that," he said gravely, "which no education can impart. Your presence here will be sunshine through the clouds. I should shrink from asking you to come among these horrors, but you have, for some reasons of your own, taken up this self-denying life, and I tell you that you can do far more good to your suffering fellow-creatures here than by seeking out cases in those vile streets. You will be safe from insult and from imposition. We have no impostors here. What do you say?" She gave him her hand, and the next day Nurse Elisia came from her home--somewhere west, the other nurses said--and returned at night unquestioned, and after a week or two of jealousy and avoidance, as one different to themselves, the attendants one and all were won to respect and deference by acts, not words. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. "YOU INSULT ME!" And now Nurse Elisia sat in Ralph Elthorne's chamber, her face buried in her hands, the memories of her past life rushing back and a sense of misery and despair increasing, so that she felt that the time had come when she must rise and flee from a place which had suddenly become insupportable to her. Then a change came over her. There was a feeling of passionate resentment, and a desire to do battle against the one who had wrecked her life. "Shall I stand by and see another's life destroyed as mine has been?" But her own misery and despair drove these thoughts away, and her spirit was sinking lower and lower as the complications of her position seemed to increase. "I cannot stay here," she said to herself. "It is impossible. I have no part or parcel with these people. I have done my duty, and I must go." Suddenly she started as if she had been stung, for her hand had been taken, and Neil Elthorne was bending over her. "For Heaven's sake," he whispered, "don't! I cannot bear to see you suffer. Tell me, why are you in such grief?" "Mr Elthorne!" she cried in a low voice, as she glanced toward where the patient lay asleep. "Yes; Neil Elthorne," he said huskily. "I cannot bear to see you in such distress. I have fought with it; I have struggled and suffered for months and months now. I felt that it was a kind of madness and that it was folly and presumption to think as I did of one who seemed never even to give me a thought. I came down here. It was to flee from you, and try to forget you, but fate brought you here, and I have had to go on from day to day fighting this bitter fight." "Mr Elthorne--your father--are you mad?" "Yes," he said excitedly. "Mad; and you have made me so. I know that I am not worthy of you, but listen; give me some hope. Elisia, have pity on me--I love you." "No, no; hush, hush!" she whispered excitedly. "It is impossible; it is not true." "It is not impossible, and it is true," he said. "You must have known this for long enough. You must have seen the cruel struggle I have had. Are you so cold and heartless that you turn from me like this?"