y, it was pure
chance-work from first to last. I was coming over here on a little
speculation of my own in the photographic line, and being low in pocket
and pretty well used to rough it, I was coming in the steerage. There
was a pretty hard crowd of us--Dutch and Irish and all sorts mixed up
there--an' among 'em one that looked as much out of her element as a
fish out of water. Any one could tell with half an eye she'd been a
lady, in spite of her shabby duds and starved, haggard face. She was
alone. Not a soul knew her, not a soul cared for her, and half-way
across she fell sick and had like to died."

Mr. Parmalee paused. My lady stood before him, ashen, white to the
lips, listening with wild, wide eyes.

"Go on," she said, almost in a whisper.

"Well, my lady," Mr. Parmalee resumed, modestly, "I'm a pretty rough
sort of a fellow, as you may see, and I hain't never experienced
religion or that, and don't lay claim to no sort of goodness; but for
all that I've an old mother over to home, and for her sake I couldn't
stand by and see a poor, sufferin' feller-critter of the female
persuasion and not lend a helping hand. I nussed that there sick party
by night and by day, and if it hadn't been for that nussin' and the
little things I bought her to eat, she'd have been under the Atlantic
now, though I do say it."

My lady held out her hand, aglitter with rich rings.

"You are a better man than I took you for," she said softly. "I thank
you with all my heart."

Mr. Parmalee took the dainty hand, rather confusedly, in his
finger-tips, held it a second, and dropped it.

"It was one night, when she thought herself dying, that she told me her
story--told me everything, my lady--who she had been, who she was, and
what she was coming across for. My lady, nobody could be sorrier than
she was then. I pitied her, by George, more than I ever pitied any one
before in my life. She had been unhappy and remorseful for a long
time, but she was in despair. It was too late for repentance, she
thought. There was nothing for it but to go on to the dreadful end.
Sometimes, when she was almost mad, she--well, she took to drink, you
know, and he wasn't in any way a good or kind protector to
her--Thorndyke wasn't."

My lady flung up both arms with a shrill scream.

"Not that name," she cried--"not that accursed name, if you would not
drive me mad!"

"I beg your pardon!" said Mr. Parmalee; "I won't. Well, she heard of