edle. I thought
to myself, 'If I go out for half an hour, a little exercise may put me
right again.' I had not, as I suppose, been out more than ten minutes
when the attack from which I had suffered in my room was renewed. There
was no shop near in which I could take refuge. I tried to ring the bell
of the nearest house door. Before I could reach it I fainted in the
street.

"How long hunger and weakness left me at the mercy of the first stranger
who might pass by, it is impossible for me to say.

"When I partially recovered my senses I was conscious of being under
shelter somewhere, and of having a wine-glass containing some cordial
drink held to my lips by a man. I managed to swallow--I don't know how
little, or how much. The stimulant had a very strange effect on me.
Reviving me at first, it ended in stupefying me. I lost my senses once
more.

"When I next recovered myself, the day was breaking. I was in a bed in
a strange room. A nameless terror seized me. I called out. Three or four
women came in, whose faces betrayed, even to my inexperienced eyes, the
shameless infamy of their lives. I started up in the bed. I implored
them to tell me where I was, and what had happened--

"Spare me! I can say no more. Not long since you heard Miss Roseberry
call me an outcast from the streets. Now you know--as God is my judge
I am speaking the truth!--now you know what made me an outcast, and in
what measure I deserved my disgrace."

Her voice faltered, her resolution failed her, for the first time.

"Give me a few minutes," she said, in low, pleading tones. "If I try to
go on now, I am afraid I shall cry."

She took the chair which Julian had placed for her, turning her face
aside so that neither of the men could see it. One of her hands was
pressed over her bosom, the other hung listlessly at her side.

Julian rose from the place that he had occupied. Horace neither moved
nor spoke. His head was on his breast: the traces of tears on his cheeks
owned mutely that she had touched his heart. Would he forgive her?
Julian passed on, and approached Mercy's chair.

In silence he took the hand which hung at her side. In silence he lifted
it to his lips and kissed it, as her brother might have kissed it. She
started, but she never looked up. Some strange fear of discovery seemed
to possess her. "Horace?" she whispered, timidly. Julian made no reply.
He went back to his place, and allowed her to think it was Horace.

The s