gh all after-events. The face that had haunted him on the
lonely road had haunted him again on the lonely sea. The woman who
had followed him, as in a dream, to his sister's door, had followed
him--thought of his thought, and spirit of his spirit--to the deck of
his ship. Through storm and calm on the voyage out, through storm and
calm on the voyage home, she had been with him. In the ceaseless turmoil
of the London streets, she was with him now. He knew what the first
question on his lips would be, when he had seen his sister and her boys.
"I shall try to talk of something else," he thought; "but when Lizzie
and I am alone, it will come out in spite of me."

The necessity of waiting to let a string of carts pass at a turning
before he crossed awakened him to present things. He looked about in a
momentary confusion. The street was strange to him; he had lost his way.

The first foot passenger of whom he inquired appeared to have no time
to waste in giving information. Hurriedly directing him to cross to the
other side of the road, to turn down the first street he came to on his
right hand, and then to ask again, the stranger unceremoniously hastened
on without waiting to be thanked.

Kirke followed his directions and took the turning on his right. The
street was short and narrow, and the houses on either side were of the
poorer order. He looked up as he passed the corner to see what the name
of the place might be. It was called "Aaron's Buildings."

Low down on the side of the "Buildings" along which he was walking,
a little crowd of idlers was assembled round two cabs, both drawn up
before the door of the same house. Kirke advanced to the crowd, to ask
his way of any civil stranger among them who might _not_ be in a hurry
this time. On approaching the cabs, he found a woman disputing with the
drivers; and heard enough to inform him that two vehicles had been sent
for by mistake, where only one was wanted.

The house door was open; and when he turned that way next, he looked
easily into the passage, over the heads of the people in front of him.

The sight that met his eyes should have been shielded in pity from the
observation of the street. He saw a slatternly girl, with a frightened
face, standing by an old chair placed in the middle of the passage,
and holding a woman on the chair, too weak and helpless to support
herself--a woman apparently in the last stage of illness, who was about
to be removed, when the dis