"But you are not the woman who escaped last October?" I stammered at
last.
"Yes," she said pathetically, "I am. Who else should I be? What do you
want with me?"
But I was speechless. It was all so unexpected, so inexplicable. I have
often thought since how much stranger fact is than fiction. The more
interested one is in life and in one's fellow-creatures the more
surprises there are in store for one. With every year I live my sense of
wonder increases, and with it my realisation of my own ignorance. As I
stared amazedly at her, a change came over her face. She looked at me
almost with eagerness.
"You didn't take me for 'er, did you?" she said hurriedly. "'Er as
'elped me. Did you know 'er? She ain't copped, is she? Don't tell me as
she's copped too."
"I thought you _were_ her," I said. "I don't know what I thought. I
don't understand it."
"She found me on a dirty night," she said, "in a tumbledown cottage. I'd
never seen her afore. But she crep' in and found me, and tole me there
was a watch kep' for me at Woodbridge. And she changed clothes with me,
so as to give me a bit of a chance. Mine was fair stiff with mud, for
I'd laid in a wet ditch till night, but they showed the blasted colour
for all that. And she give me all she had on her--her clothes, and a
bite of bread and bacon, and two pence. And it wasn't as if we was pals.
I'd never seen her afore. She stuck at nothing, and she only larfed at
the risk, for they'd have shut her up for certain if they'd caught her.
She said she'd manage some'ow. And she 'eartened me up, and put me on
the road for Wickham, and she said she'd dror away the pursoot by hiding
the prison clothes somewhere in the opsit direction where they could be
found easy by the first fool."
"She did it," I said.
"And how did she spare 'em? She'd nuthin' but them."
"I gave her some more. If she had been my own sister I could not have
done more for her."
"And she worn't caught, wor she?"
"Not that I know of. No, I feel sure she never was. I helped her to get
away."
"I was took in spite of all," said the woman, "and by my own silliness.
But I seed my little Nan alive fust, and that was all I wanted. And I
don't know who she was, nor what she was. She tole me she was a outcast
and a tramp and a good-for-nothing. But there's never been anybody yet,
be they who they may, as done for me what she done. She'd have give me
the skin orf her back if she could 'ave took it orf. And it worn't as if
I knowed her. I'd never set eyes on 'er afore, nor never shall again."