human
You knew, of course, Miss Jennings, that Hobson went back to Cherbourg on the tender. He left good-by for you.
gpt
Hunting for somebody, as usual, I suppose?
human
Yes
gpt
A wretched life, isn't it, said Nurse Jennings,
human
You know him then?
gpt
Yes--he's a Scotland Yard man.
human
And you say he was looking for some one on board and didn't find him?
gpt
No, not yet, but he will find him, he always does; that's the pity of it. Some of these poor hunted people would lead a different life if they had another chance. I tried to save the one Hobson found in my ward. He was quite frank with me, and told me everything. When people trust me my heart always goes out to them--so much so that I often do very foolish things that are apt to get me into trouble. It's when they lie to me--and so many do--making one excuse after another for their being in the ward--that I lose all interest in them. I pleaded with Hobson to give the man another chance, but I could do nothing. Thief as he was, he had told the truth. He had that quality left, and I liked him for it. If I had known Hobson was on his track I'd have helped him in some way to get off. He stole to help his old mother, and wasn't a criminal in any sense--only weak-hearted. The law is cruel--it never makes allowances--that's where it is wrong.
human
Cruel!--it's brutal. It is more brutal often than the crime, answered Sister Teresa in a voice full of emotion.
gpt
Do you think the man your friend was looking for here on board will escape?
human
No, I'm afraid not. There is very little chance of any criminal escaping when they once get on his track, so Mr. Hobson has told me. If he is on this steamer he must run another gauntlet in New York, even if he is among the emigrants. You know we have over a thousand on board. If he is not aboard they will track him down. Dreadful, isn't it?
gpt
Poor fellow, said Sister Teresa, a sob in her voice,
human
Here she rose from her chair, and gathering her black cloak about her crossed to the rail and looked out to sea. In a few minutes she returned.
gpt
Let us walk out to the bow where we can talk undisturbed, she said.
human
The constant movement of the passengers on deck, passing backward and forward, disturbs my head. I see so few people, you know.
gpt
Don't misunderstand what I said about the brutality of the law, she began.
human
There must be laws, and brutal men who commit brutal crimes must be punished. But there are so many men who are not brutal, although the crimes may be. I knew of one once. We had educated his little daughter--such a sweet child! The man himself was a scene-painter and worked in the theatres in London. Sometimes he would take part in the play himself, making up for the minor characters, although most of his time was spent in painting scenery. He had married a woman who was on the stage, and she had deserted him for one of the actors, and left her child behind. Her faithlessness nearly broke his heart. Through one of our own people in London he found us and sent the child to the convent where we have a school for just such cases. When the girl got to be seventeen years old he sent for her and she went to London to see him. He remembered her mother's career, and guarded her like a little plant. He never allowed her to come to the theatre except in the middle of the day. Then she would come where he was at work up on the top of the painting platform high above the stage. There he and she would be alone. One morning while he was at work one of the scene-shifters--a man with whom he had had some difficulty--met the girl as she was crossing the high platform. He had never seen her before and, thinking she was one of the chorus girls, threw his arm about her. The girl screamed, the scene-painter dropped his brushes, ran to her side, hit the man in the face--the scene-shifter lost his balance and fell to the stage. Before he died in the hospital he told who had struck him; he told why, too; that the scene-painter hated him; and that the two had had an altercation the day before--about some colors; which was not true, there only having been a difference of opinion. The man fled to Paris with his daughter. The girl today is at one of our institutions at Rouen. The detectives, suspecting that he would try to see her, have been watching that place for the last five months. All that time he has been employed in the garden of a convent out of Paris. Last week we heard from a Sister in London that some one had recognized him, although he had shaved off his beard--some visitor or parent of one of the children, perhaps, who had come upon him suddenly while at work in the garden beds. He is now a fugitive, hunted like an animal. He never intended to harm this man--he only tried to save his daughter--and yet he knew that because of the difficulty that he had had with the dead man and the fact that his daughter's testimony would not help him--she being an interested person--he would be made to suffer for a crime he had not intended to commit. Now, would you hand this poor father over to the police? In a year his daughter must leave the convent. She then has no earthly protection.