in the street," whispers the woman, her head
falling carelessly from the policeman's hand, in which it had rested.

"Got her a bit below, at the Work'ouse door, among them wot sleeps
there, eh?"

The stranger says he did.

"A common enough thing," pursues the policeman; "this a bad lot. Anyhow,
we must give her a tow to the station." He rubs his hands, and prepares
to raise her from the ground.

"Hold! hold," interrupts the other, "she will die ere you get her
there."

"Die,--ah! yes, yes," whispers the woman. The mention of death seems to
have wrung like poison into her very soul. "Don't--don't move me--the
spell is almost broken. Oh! how can I die here, a wretch. Yes, I am
going now--let me rest, rest, rest," the moaning supplicant mutters in a
guttural voice, grasps spasmodically at the policeman's hand, heaves a
deep sigh, and sets her eyes fixedly upon the stranger. She seems
recognizing in his features something that gives her strength.

"There--there--there!" she continues, incoherently, as a fit of
hysterics seize upon her; "you, you, you, have--yes, you have come at
the last hour, when my sufferings close. I see devils all about
me--haunting me--torturing my very soul--burning me up! See them! see
them!--here they come--tearing, worrying me--in a cloud of flame!" She
clutches with her hands, her countenance fills with despair, and her
body writhes in agony.

"Bring brandy! warm,--stimulant! anything to give her strength! Quick!
quick!--go fetch it, or she is gone!" stammers out the stranger.

In another minute she calms away, and sinks exhausted upon the pavement.
Policeman shakes his head, and says, "It 'ont do no good--she's done
for."

The light of the "Trumpeter's Arms" still blazes into the street, while
a few greasy ale-bibbers sit moody about the tap-room.

The two men raise the exhausted woman from the ground and carry her to
the door. Mine host of the Trumpeter's Arms shrugs his shoulders and
says, "She can't come in here." He fears she will damage the
respectability of his house. "The Work-house is the place for her," he
continues, gruffly.

A sight at the stranger's well-filled purse, however, and a few
shillings slipped into the host's hand, secures his generosity and the
woman's admittance. "Indeed," says the host, bowing most servilely,
"gentlemen, the whole Trumpeter's Arms is at your service." The woman is
carried into a lonely, little back room, and laid upon a cot, which,
with