She's a wonder!"
"Who? Miss Orr?"
"Of course! Say, Ellen, if you knew what that girl has gone through,
without a murmur; and now I'm afraid-- By George! we ought to spare
her."
"We?"
"Yes; you and I. You can do a lot to help, Ellen, if you will. That
old man you saw is sick, hardly sane. And no wonder."
He stopped short and stared fixedly at his companion.
"Did you guess who he was?" he asked abruptly.
Ellen reflected. "I can guess--if you'll give me time."
Jim made an impatient gesture. "That's just what I thought," he
growled. "There'll be the devil to pay generally."
"Jim," said Ellen earnestly, "if we are to help her, you must tell me
all about that old man."
"_She_ wanted to tell everybody," he recollected gloomily. "And why
not you? Imagine an innocent child set apart from the world by
another's crime, Ellen. See, if you can, that child growing up, with
but one thought, one ideal--the welfare of that other person. Picture
to yourself what it would be like to live solely to make a great
wrong right, and to save the wrongdoer. Literally, Ellen, she has
borne that man's grief and carried his sorrow, as truly as any
vaunted Saviour of the world. Can you see it?"
"Do you mean--? Is _that_ why she calls it _Bolton_ House? Of course!
And that dreadful old man is-- But, Jim, everybody will find it out."
"You're right," he acknowledged. "But they mustn't find it out just
yet. We must put it off till the man can shake that hang-dog air of
his.
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