"Wilkie Collins - The New Magdalen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Collins Wilkie)

had begun it. "Mine is a sad story, is it not?" she said.
The voice of the nurse answered her suddenly and bitterly in these strange
words:
"There are sadder stories than yours. There are thousands of miserable women who
would ask for no greater blessing than to change places with you."
Grace started. "What can there possibly be to envy in such a lot as mine?"
"Your unblemished character, and your prospect of being established honorably in
a respectable house."
Grace turned in her chair, and looked wonderingly into the dim corner of the
room.
"How strangely you say that!" she exclaimed. There was no answer; the shadowy
figure on the chest never moved. Grace rose impulsively, and drawing her chair
after her, approached the nurse. "Is there some romance in your life?" she
asked. "Why have you sacrificed yourself to the terrible duties which I find you
performing here? You interest me indescribably. Give me your hand."
Mercy shrank back, and refused the offered hand.
"Are we not friends?" Grace asked, in astonishment.
"We can never be friends."
"Why not?"
The nurse was dumb. Grace called to mind the hesitation that she had shown when
she had mentioned her name, and drew a new conclusion from it. "Should I be
guessing right," she asked, eagerly, "if I guessed you to be some great lady in
disguise?"
Mercy laughed to herself--low and bitterly. "I a great lady!" she said,
contemptuously. "For Heaven's sake, let us talk of something else!"
Grace's curiosity was thoroughly roused. She persisted. "Once more," she
whispered, persuasively, "let us be friends." She gently laid her hand as she
spoke on Mercy's shoulder. Mercy roughly shook it off. There was a rudeness in
the action which would have offended the most patient woman living. Grace drew
back indignantly. "Ah!" she cried, "you are cruel."
"I am kind," answered the nurse, speaking more sternly than ever.
"Is it kind to keep me at a distance? I have told you my story."
The nurse's voice rose excitedly. "Don't tempt me to speak out," she said; "you
will regret it."
Grace declined to accept the warning. "I have placed confidence in you," she
went on. "It is ungenerous to lay me under an obligation, and then to shut me
out of your confidence in return."
"You will have it?" said Mercy Merrick. "You shall have it! Sit down again."
Grace's heart began to quicken its beat in expectation of the disclosure that
was to come. She drew her chair closer to the chest on which the nurse was
sitting. With a firm hand Mercy put the chair back to a distance from her. "Not
so near me!" she said, harshly.
"Why not?"
"Not so near," repeated the sternly resolute voice. "Wait till you have heard
what I have to say."
Grace obeyed without a word more. There was a momentary silence. A faint flash
of light leaped up from the expiring candle, and showed Mercy crouching on the
chest, with her elbows on her knees, and her face hidden in her hands. The next
instant the room was buried in obscurity. As the darkness fell on the two women
the nurse spoke.