"Speak, nurse; if you have anything to say, the gentlemen are willing to
hear it."

The girl's crying deepened into sobs.

"Useless!" said the chairman.

"Impossible!" said the canon.

But some one suggested that perhaps the nurse had a girl friend in the
hospital who could throw light on the difficult situation. Then Sister
Allworthy whispered to the matron, who said, "Bring her in."

John Storm's face had assumed a fixed and absent expression, but he saw a
girl of larger size than Polly Love enter the room with a gleam, as it
were, of sunshine on her golden-red hair. It was Glory.

There was some preliminary whispering, and then the canon began again:

"You are a friend and companion of Mary Elizabeth Love?"

"Yes," said Glory.

Her voice was full and calm, and a look of quiet courage lit up her
girlish beauty.

"You have known her other friends, no doubt, and perhaps you have shared
her confidence?"

"I think so."

"Then you can tell the board if the unhappy condition in which she finds
herself is due to any one connected with this hospital."

"I think not."

"Not to any officer, servant, or member of any school attached to it?"

"No."

"Thank you," said the chairman, "that is quite enough," and down the
tables of the governors there were nods and smiles of satisfaction.

"What have I done?" said Glory.

"You have done a great service to an ancient and honourable institution,"
said the canon, "and the best return the board can make for your candour
and intelligence is to advise you to avoid such companionship for the
future and to flee such perilous associations."

A certain desperate recklessness expressed itself in Glory's face, and
she stepped up to Polly, who was now weeping audibly, and put her arm
about the girl's waist.

"What are the girl's relatives?" said the chairman.

The matron replied out of her book. Polly was an orphan, both her parents
being dead. She had a brother who had lately been a patient in the
hospital, but he was only a lay-helper in the Anglican Monastery at
Bishopsgate Street, and therefore useless for present purposes.

There was some further whispering about the tables. Was this the girl who
had been recommended to the hospital by the coroner who had investigated
a certain notorious and tragic case? Yes.

"I think I have heard of some poor and low relations," said the canon,
"but their own condition is probably too needy to allow them to help her
at a time