voice exclaiming, 'What do you want to
set on my bed an' look at me like that for?--you ain't no p'leaceman
in plain clothes, so none o' your larks. Git off o' my bed, will ye?
You'll be a-settin' on my bad leg an' a-bustin' on it in a minit. Git
off my bed, else look another way; them eyes o' yourn skear me.'

I was sitting on the side of her bed and looking into her face.
'Where did you get this?' I said, holding out the letter.

'You skears me, a-lookin' like that,' said she. 'I comed by it
'onest. One day when she was asleep, I was turnin' over 'er clothes
to see how much longer they would hold together, when I feels a
somethink 'ard sewed up in the breast; I rips it open, and it was
that letter. I didn't put it back in the frock ag'in, 'cause I
thought it might be useful some day in findin' out who she was. She
never missed it. I don't think she'd 'ave missed anythink, she wur
so oncommon silly. You ain't a-goin' to pocket it, air you?'

I had put the letter in my pocket, and had seized the shoes and was
going out of the room; but I stopped, took a sovereign from my purse,
placed it in an envelope bearing my own address which I chanced to
find in my pocket, and, putting it into her hand, I said, 'Here is my
address and here is a sovereign. I will tell your friend below to
come for me or send whenever you need assistance.' The woman clutched
at the money with greed, and I left the room, signalling to Sinfi
(who stood on the landing, pale and deeply moved) to follow me
downstairs. When we reached the wretched room on the ground-floor we
found the girl hanging some wet rags on lines that were stretched
from wall to wall.

'What is your name?' I said.

'Polly Unwin,' replied she, turning round with a piece of damp linen
in her hand.

'And what are you?'

'What am I?'

'I mean what do you do for a living?'

'What do I do for a living?' she said. 'All kinds of things--help the
men at the barrows in the New Cut sell flowers, do anything that
comes in my way.'

'Never mind what she does for a livin', brother,' said Sinfi; 'give
her a gold balanser or two, and tell her to see arter the woman.'

'Here is some money,' I said to the girl. 'See that Mrs. Gudgeon
upstairs wants for nothing. Is that story of hers true about her
daughter and Llanbeblig churchyard?'

'That's true enough, though she's a wunner at a lie: that's true
enough.'

But as I spoke I heard a noise like the laugh or the shriek of a
maniac.