pute outside was ended, in one of the cabs.
Her head was drooping when he first saw her, and an old shawl which
covered it had fallen forward so as to hide the upper part of her face.

Before he could look away again, the girl in charge of her raised her
head and restored the shawl to its place. The action disclosed her face
to view, for an instant only, before her head drooped once more on her
bosom. In that instant he saw the woman whose beauty was the haunting
remembrance of his life--whose image had been vivid in his mind not five
minutes since.

The shock of the double recognition--the recognition, at the same
moment, of the face, and of the dreadful change in it--struck him
speechless and helpless. The steady presence of mind in all emergencies
which had become a habit of his life, failed him for the first time. The
poverty-stricken street, the squalid mob round the door, swam before
his eyes. He staggered back and caught at the iron railings of the house
behind him.

"Where are they taking her to?" he heard a woman ask, close at his side.

"To the hospital, if they will have her," was the reply. "And to the
work-house, if they won't."

That horrible answer roused him. He pushed his way through the crowd and
entered the house.

The misunderstanding on the pavement had been set right, and one of the
cabs had driven off.

As he crossed the threshold of the door he confronted the people of
the house at the moment when they were moving her. The cabman who had
remained was on one side of the chair, and the woman who had been
disputing with the two drivers was on the other. They were just lifting
her, when Kirke's tall figure darkened the door.

"What are you doing with that lady?" he asked.

The cabman looked up with the insolence of his reply visible in his
eyes, before his lips could utter it. But the woman, quicker than he,
saw the suppressed agitation in Kirke's face, and dropped her hold of
the chair in an instant.

"Do you know her, sir?" asked the woman, eagerly. "Are you one of her
friends?"

"Yes," said Kirke, without hesitation.

"It's not my fault, sir," pleaded the woman, shirking under the look
he fixed on her. "I would have waited patiently till her friends found
her--I would, indeed!"

Kirke made no reply. He turned, and spoke to the cabman.

"Go out," he said, "and close the door after you. I'll send you down
your money directly. What room in the house did you take her from,
when you