zzie Stitch by name, sobbing over the cinders in
her sitting-room grate. The besmirched little face, like a sodden
little pudding, had been covered with grimy hands, and the thin little
chest had heaved under the scanty cotton blouse and the stress of the
tale of betrayal and desertion.

"I didn't know, miss. I didn't do it purposelike for a lark. I did
think it was love, _real_ love what--what is h'always pardinned. Well,
miss, if you think it wise to force 'im, I'll do what you say, though
it's not about meself as I'm worrying; it's 'cause I must have a father
for the kid. I couldn't put it out, an' lose it, not h'ever so."

Then had come about a strange scene of transformation. Confronted by
Damaris with a riding-whip in one hand, a special license in the other,
and Wellington at her heels, the fox-faced young man had professed a
desire to marry the tweeny on the spot.

Then had been granted a seventh-heaven glimpse of what love, real love,
can be, to the tweeny maid, changing her into a veritable spitfire, who
had turned and rent the fox-faced youth.

"I wouldn't 'ave you, nohow, no, not if yer were the larst man on
earth, not 'alf I wouldn't. I'll get through my trouble, miss, all
right, an' by meself, thanking you kindly for troubling, an' I'll wait
until Mister Right comes along; that's what I'll do, Mister Runaway."

And when Mr. Runaway had hinted that Mr. Right might kick at being
called upon to shoulder the encumbrances of others, she had snatched
the special license from her young mistress, torn it into bits, flung
it into the foxy face and blazed into a big-hearted, big-minded,
all-understanding little tweeny maid of a woman.

"I said Mr. Right, didn't I, yer bloomin' chuckhead? 'E'll unnerstand
that it was all done in mistake, an' not by preference, so to speak.
An' unnerstandin', he'll forgive. Lots of them mistakes are made by
girls like me"--thumping of washed but still grimy hand above gallant
little heart--"through swipes like you. Life's full of 'em down our
way. But life's love, and love's life, and you can't get away from
that, that yer can't. And I'd raver die wiv my love shut up
'ere"--more thumps above gallant little heart--"than throw it away on a
louse like you, _that_ I would, not 'arf!"

Ben Kelham said nothing, and there fell a silence between the two,
though the Egyptian night was as full of noise as it ever is in the big
cities of the East.

"What did she mean, Ben,"