r much altered. People said
she was in love with him: if she was, it did her no harm. Her whole
character certainly was changed. She sought the friendship of Miss St.
John, who came at length to like her so much, that she took her with
her in some of her walks among the poor. By degrees she began to do
something herself after a quiet modest fashion. But within a few years,
probably while so engaged, she caught a fever from which she did not
recover. It was not till after her death that Falconer told any one of
the interview he had had with her. And by that time I had the honour of
being very intimate with him. When she knew that she was dying, she sent
for him. Mary St. John was with her. She left them together. When he
came out, he was weeping.

CHAPTER XI. THE SUICIDE.

Falconer lived on and laboured on in London. Wherever he found a man
fitted for the work, he placed him in such office as De Fleuri already
occupied. At the same time he went more into society, and gained the
friendship of many influential people. Besides the use he made of this
to carry out plans for individual rescue, it enabled him to bestir
himself for the first and chief good which he believed it was in
the power of the government to effect for the class amongst which he
laboured. As I have shown, he did not believe in any positive good
being effected save through individual contact--through faith, in a
word--faith in the human helper--which might become a stepping-stone
through the chaotic misery towards faith in the Lord and in his Father.
All that association could do, as such, was only, in his judgment, to
remove obstructions from the way of individual growth and education--to
put better conditions within reach--first of all, to provide that the
people should be able, if they would, to live decently. He had no notion
of domestic inspection, or of offering prizes for cleanliness and order.
He knew that misery and wretchedness are the right and best condition
of those who live so that misery and wretchedness are the natural
consequences of their life. But there ought always to be the possibility
of emerging from these; and as things were, over the whole country, for
many who would if they could, it was impossible to breathe fresh air, to
be clean, to live like human beings. And he saw this difficulty ever
on the increase, through the rapacity of the holders of small
house-property, and the utter wickedness of railway companies, who
pulle