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.