ggle and then . . . the woman and I were
walking side by side.

And the harlot was carrying my baby down the street.

NINETY-FOURTH CHAPTER

At five o'clock I was once more alone.

I was then standing (with baby in my own arms now) under the statue
which is at the back of Bow Church.

I thought I could walk no farther, and although every penny I had in my
pocket belonged to Isabel (being all that yet stood between her and
want) I must borrow a little of it if she was to reach Mrs. Oliver's
that night.

I waited for the first tram that was going in my direction, and when it
came up I signalled to it, but it did not stop--it was full.

I waited for a second tram, but that was still more crowded.

I reproached myself for having come so far. I told myself how
ill-advised I had been in seeking for a nurse for my child at the
farthest end of the city. I reminded myself that I could not hope to
visit her every day if my employment was to be in the West, as I had
always thought it would be. I asked myself if in all this vast London,
with its myriads of homes, there had been no house nearer that could
have sheltered my child.

Against all this I had to set something, or I think my very heart would
have died there and then. I set the thought of Ilford, on the edge of
the country, with its green fields and its flowers. I set the thought of
Mrs. Oliver, who would love my child as tenderly as if she were her own
little lost one.

I dare say it was all very weak and childish, but it is just when we are
done and down, and do not know what we are doing, that Providence seems
to be directing us, and it was so with me at that moment.

The trams being full I had concluded that Fate had set itself against
my spending any of Isabel's money, and had made up my mind to make a
fierce fight over the last stage of my journey, when I saw that a little
ahead of where I was standing the road divided into two branches at an
acute angle, one branch going to the right and the other to the left.

Not all Emmerjane's instructions about keeping "as straight as a' arrow"
sufficed to show me which of the two roads to take and I looked about
for somebody to tell me.

It was then that I became aware of a shabby old four-wheeled cab which
stood in the triangular space in front of the statue, and of the driver
(an old man, in a long coachman's coat, much worn and discoloured, and a
dilapidated tall hat, very shiny in patches) looking at