"I wish I could change
places now!"
The silence began to oppress her. She walked slowly to the other
end of the room.
The cloak on the floor--her own cloak, which she had lent to Miss
Roseberry--attracted her attention as she passed it. She picked
it up and brushed the dust from it, and laid it across a chair.
This done, she put the light back on the table, and going to the
window, listened for the first sounds of the German advance. The
faint passage of the wind through some trees near at hand was the
only sound that caught her ears. She turned from the window, and
seated herself at the table, thinking. Was there any duty still
left undone that Christian charity owed to the dead? Was there
any further service that pressed for performance in the interval
before the Germans appeared?
Mercy recalled the conversation that had passed between her ill-
fated companion and herself . Miss Roseberry had spoken of her
object in returning to England. She had mentioned a lady--a
connection by marriage, to whom she was personally a
stranger--who was waiting to receive her. Some one capable of
stating how the poor creature had met with her death ought to
write to her only friend.
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