Nicholas Ware came out into that hall.
What he saw was a woman of about six-and-twenty in a green stuff gown that had been good four years ago, holding a leather bag and a shawl, with her hair coming down on one side and dust to the knee. She was not crying. She was not performing. She looked at him, dropped a curtsy that was a great deal better than her boots, and said, "Your Grace."
And then stood there.
"You want a bed?" he said.
"Two nights, sir, and I shall work for it. I am not asking for anything given. I kept my great-aunt's house nine years, and I can do the books, and the linen, and the stillroom, and I have got no character because I was a relation and not a servant, and I know exactly what that is worth."
"And after two nights?"
"I do not know," said Hannah Sedge.
That was the answer that did it, and he told her so about four months later—not the curtsy, and not the nine years, but that she had stood on his step with four shillings in the world and had refused, in front of two servants, to invent a plan she did not have.
Nicholas Ware looked at her for about four seconds. "How much money have you got?"