“I said just now that he saved me. He did save me; you shall hear how. One Sunday our regular clergyman at the Refuge was not able to officiate. His place was taken by a stranger, quite a young man. The matron told us the stranger’s name was Julian Gray. I sat in the back row of seats, under the shadow of the gallery, where I could see him without his seeing me. His text was from the words, ‘Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. ‘What happier women might have thought of his sermon I cannot say; there was not a dry eye among us at the Refuge. As for me, he touched my heart as no man has touched it before or since. The hard despair melted in me at the sound of his voice; the weary round of my life showed its nobler side again while he spoke. From that time I have accepted my hard lot, I have been a patient woman. I might have been something more, I might have been a happy woman, if I could have prevailed on myself to speak to Julian Gray.” “What hindered you from speaking to him?” “I was afraid.” “Afraid of what?” “Afraid of making my hard life harder still.” A woman who could have sympathized with her would perhaps have guessed what those words meant. Grace was simply embarrassed by her; and Grace failed to guess. “I don’t understand you,” she said. There was no alternative for Mercy but to own the truth in plain words. She sighed, and said the words. “I was afraid I might interest him in my sorrows, and might set my heart on him in return.” The utter absence of any fellow-feeling with her on Grace’s side expressed itself unconsciously in the plainest terms. “You!” she exclaimed, in a tone of blank astonishment. The nurse rose slowly to her feet. Grace’s expression of surprise told her plainly--almost brutally--that her confession had gone far enough. “I astonish you?” she said. “Ah, my young lady, you don’t know what rough usage a woman’s heart can bear, and still beat truly! Before I saw Julian Gray I only knew men as objects of horror to me. Let us drop the subject. The preacher at the Refuge is nothing but a remembrance now--the one welcome remembrance of my life! I have nothing more to tell you. You insisted on hearing my story--you have heard it.” “I have not heard how you found employment here,” said Grace, continuing the conversation with uneasy politeness, as she best might. Mercy crossed the room, and slowly raked together the last living embers of the fire.