In one cottage, where she had long noticed with
pitying wonder a white-faced, black-eyed girl, who seemed to crouch
away from everyone, she even received a request. It was delivered with
terrified secrecy in a back-yard, out of Mrs. Barter's hearing.
"Oh, ma'am! Get me away from here! I'm in trouble--it's comin', and I
don't know what I shall do."
Mrs. Pendyce shivered, and all the way home she thought: 'Poor little
soul--poor little thing!' racking her brains to whom she might confide
this case and ask for a solution; and something of the white-faced,
black-eyed girl's terror and secrecy fell on her, for, she found no one
not even Mrs. Barter, whose heart, though soft, belonged to the Rector.
Then, by a sort of inspiration, she thought of Gregory.
'How can I write to him,' she mused, 'when my son----'
But she did write, for, deep down, the Totteridge instinct felt that
others should do things for her; and she craved, too, to allude, however
distantly, to what was on her mind. And, under the Pendyce eagle and the
motto: 'Strenuus aureaque penna', thus her letter ran:
"DEAR GRIG,
"Can you do anything for a poor little girl in the village here who is
'in trouble'?--you know what I mean. It is such a terrible crime in
this part of the country, and she looks so wretched and frightened, poor
little thing! She is twenty years old.
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