Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/78

Rh sympathy ran through the circle, and Mrs. VVestmore moved forward with an answering exclamation. “You poor creature… you poor creature.…” She opened her arms to Mrs. Dillon, and the scrubber’s sobs were buried on her employer’s breast.

“I will go to the hospital—I will come and see you—I will see that everything is done,” Bessy reiterated. “But why are you here? How is it that you have had to leave your children?” She freed herself to turn a reproachful glance on Amherst. “You don’t mean to tell me that, at such a time, you keep the poor woman at work?”

“Mrs. Dillon has not been working here lately,” Amherst answered. “The manager took her back today at her own request, that she might earn something while her husband was in hospital.”

Mrs. Westmore’s eyes shone indignantly. “Earn something? But surely”

She met a silencing look from Mr. Tredegar, who had stepped between Mrs. Dillon and herself.

“My dear child, no one doubts—none of these good pe0ple doubt—that you will look into the case, and do all you can to alleviate it; but let me suggest that this is hardly the place”

She turned from him with an appealing glance at Amherst.

“I think,” the latter said, as their eyes met, “that [ 66 ]