' But he only laughed and
left me fifty pounds.
"Well, I lived with this young student for a matter of six months. A
lovely time we had, till he began gettin' melancholy--matter of no
money partly. He tried bein' a journalist.
"Then the Church got him back. There came about a reg'lar change in
him, and just at the time when _you_ was comin' along. He woke up
one night in a cold sweat and said he was eternally damned.
'Nonsense,' I says, 'it's them crayfish; you ought never to eat that
bisque soup...'
"But he meant it. He went back to Louvain--where I'm goin' to take
you in a day or two--and I suppose they made him do all sorts of
penances before they gave him absolution. But he stuck to it. In due
time he became a priest and entered one of them religious houses.
They think a lot of him at Louvain. I've seen him once or twice but
I can't bear to meet his eyes--they're somethin' like yours--make me
feel a reg'lar Jezebel. And as to you? Well, when he left me I
hadn't got much money left; so, before I begged a passage back to
England, I called in at the very hotel where you found me the other
day, and where me an' my barrister friend had been stayin'. I'd got
to know the proprietress a little--real kind-'earted woman she was.
She said to me 'See here. You stop with me and help me in the bureau
and have your baby. I'll look after you.
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