before he left London. One of these
commissions took him into the neighbourhood of
Camden Town. He drove to his destination
from the Docks; and then, dismissing the
vehicle, set forth to walk back southward,
towards the New Road.

He was not well acquainted with the district;
and his attention wandered, further and further
away from the scene around him, as he went on.
His thoughts, roused by the prospect of seeing
his sister again, had led his memory back to the
night when he had parted from her, leaving the
house on foot. The spell so strangely laid on him,
in that past time, had kept its hold through 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 are alone, it will come out in spite
of me."

The necessity of waiting to let a string of carts
pass at a turning, before lie 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
one only 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 dispute 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 back 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 workhouse, if they
won't."

That horrible answer roused him. He
instantly 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,
shrinking 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 brought her down here?" he resumed,
addressing himself to the woman again.

"The first floor back, sir."