I continued to visit her till the time approached when her husband would be released, a time to which she looked forward with dread. She told me this repeatedly. The day the husband was released I went to the house to meet him, for I thought my services might be useful. The husband was there, but the wife had gone, taking her children with her. None of the neighbours knew where she had gone--she had kept silence on the matter--but gone she was, much to her brutal husband’s consternation, for he was now homeless. I tried several times to find her, but quite in vain, so I gave up the search: But I knew she was hiding from her husband, and was afraid to let me know her address lest he should find it out.
Two years went by, and I neither saw nor heard anything of her, when, on Christmas morning, I received a letter which contained no address or name; but it was from her. This is the letter:
‘I hope this will find you and all your family quite well. I hope this Christmas will be a happy one, and that in the New Year God’s blessing may be with you in all your labours. That you may have good health and happiness, I sincerely pray; that your life may be long spared, I earnestly hope, for you to cheer the oppressed and the broken-hearted. You will, I know, continue to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked and to visit the sick, for you have done it to me many a time. Sometimes, when I have lain helpless on my bed, waited on by a little child, with only thin water-gruel, without sugar, to eat, you, sir, have come in with your helping hands, and have said: “You must have something better”; and you would bring it. Had it not been for you, my children would have gone hungry many a time, for often the last slice had gone, and the last bit of coal had been burnt, when you would again come in and bring more. I do not ask anything from you. I shall not let you know who I am. I am almost past help in this world, but I feel that I must let you know that your kindness to me is not and cannot be forgotten. May God answer the prayers I have offered for you. They shall be answered, for the King Himself shall answer, and say unto you: “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto Me”; and you shall enter into joy. May God bless you!