few necessary articles of linen--no dresses, no ornaments, not so much
as the fragment of a letter which might help in discovering her friends.
Between the risk of keeping her under these circumstances, and the
barbarity of turning a sick woman into the street, the landlady herself
had not hesitated. She would willingly have kept her tenant, on the
chance of the lady's recovery, and on the chance of her friends turning
up. But not half an hour since, her husband--who never came near the
house, except to take her money--had come to rob her of her little
earnings, as usual. She had been obliged to tell him that no rent was in
hand for the first floor, and that none was likely to be in hand until
the lady recovered, or her friends found her. On hearing this, he had
mercilessly insisted--well or ill--that the lady should go. There was
the hospital to take her to; and if the hospital shut its doors, there
was the workhouse to try next. If she was not out of the place in an
hour's time, he threatened to come back and take her out himself. His
wife knew but too well that he was brute enough to be as good as his
word; and no other choice had been left her but to do as she had done,
for the sake of the lady herself.

The woman told her shocking story, with every appearance of being
honestly ashamed of it. Toward the end, Kirke felt the clasp of the
burning fingers slackening round his hand. He looked back at the bed
again. Her weary eyes were closing; and, with her face still turned
toward the sailor, she was sinking into sleep.

"Is there any one in the front room?" said Kirke, in a whisper. "Come in
there; I have something to say to you."

The woman followed him through the door of communication between the
rooms.

"How much does she owe you?" he asked.

The landlady mentioned the sum. Kirke put it down before her on the
table.

"Where is your husband?" was his next question.

"Waiting at the public-house, sir, till the hour is up."

"You can take him the money or not, as you think right," said Kirke,
quietly. "I have only one thing to tell you, as far as your husband is
concerned. If you want to see every bone in his skin broken, let him
come to the house while I am in it. Stop! I have something more to say.
Do you know of any doctor in the neighborhood who can be depended on?"

"Not in our neighborhood, sir. But I know of one within half an hour's
walk of us."

"Take the cab at the door; and, if you find him at