her hands.

"Is it you, Mercy?" said Hugh.

She made no answer. Then she tried to steal away, but he held her with
gentle force.

"Why did you leave Hendon?" he asked.

"You did not want me," said the girl, in a tone of unutterable pain. And
still her face was buried in her hands.

He did not reply. He let her grief spend itself.

Just then a drunken woman reeled back along the pavement and passed them
close, peering into their midst, and going by with a jarring laugh.

"What's he a-doing to ye, my dear, eh?" she said, jeeringly. "Sarve ye
right!" she added, and laughed again. She was a draggled, battered
outcast--a human ruin, such as night, the pander, flings away.

Mercy lifted her head. A dull, weary look was in her eyes.

"You know how I waited and waited," she said, "and you were so long in
coming, so very long." She turned her eyes aside. "You did not want me;
in your heart you did not want me," she said.

The wave of bitter memory drowned her voice. Not unmoved, he stood and
looked at her, and saw the child-face wet with tears, and the night
breeze of the city drift in her yellow hair.

"Where have you been since?" he said.

"A man going to market brought me up in his wagon. I fainted, and then
he took me to his home. He lives close by, in the Horse and Groom Yard.
His wife is bedridden, and such a good creature, and so kind to me. But
they are poor, and I had no money, and I was afraid to be a burden to
them; and besides--besides--"

"Well?"

"She saw that I was--she saw what was going to--being a woman, she knew
I was soon--"

"Yes, yes," said Hugh, stopping another flood of tears with a light
touch of the hand. "How red your eyes look. Are they worse?"

"The man was very good; he took me to the doctors at a hospital, and
they said--oh, they said I might lose my sight!"

"Poor little Mercy!" said Hugh.

He was now ashamed of his own sufferings. How loud they had clamored
awhile ago; yet, what were they side by side with this poor girl's
tangible sorrows! Mere things of the air, with no reality.

"But no matter!" she burst out. "That's no matter."

"You must keep up heart, Mercy. I spoke angrily to you the other night,
but it's over now, is it not?"

"Oh, why didn't you leave me alone?" said the girl.

"Hush, Mercy; it will be well with you yet." His own eyes were growing
dim, but even then his heart was bitter. Had he not said in his wrath
that passion was the demon of the world? H