He let her go, somewhat bewildered, and not understanding herself or
him, nor caring to understand, only happy, dangerously happy. The train
bore her through an enchanted region of brightness and summer, and,
although the power of thought was for the moment suspended, she was
conscious of this, and her own delight was like the unreasoning
pleasure of earth when the sun is upon it.
There was no carriage to meet her at the station, and she set off to
walk home. It was the first time she had been alone on foot in the
squalid disorderly streets of that dingy place, and her way, which she
was not quite sure of, took her through some of the worst of them. They
were filled with loud-laughing uncleanly women, and skulking hang-dog-
looking men, and the grime-clogged atmosphere was heavy with foul
odours; but she noticed nothing of this. The golden glow the sun made
in his efforts to shine through the clouds of smoke might have been a
visible expression of her own ecstatic feeling, and she would have
thought so at any other time, but now she never saw it.
In a somewhat open and more lonely part of the road she met a tramp, a
great rude, hulking, common fellow, with fine blue eyes. He stopped in
the middle of the road and stared at Ideala as she came up to him,
walking, as usual, with a slight undulating movement that made you
think of a yacht in a breeze, her face up-raised and her lips parted.
He took off his cap as she approached. The gesture attracted her
attention, and, thinking he wanted to beg or ask some question, she
stopped and looked at him inquiringly.
"Well, you _are_ a nice lady!" he exclaimed.
He hadn't the gift of language, but she saw the soul of a man in his
eyes, and she understood him.
"Thank you," she answered, and passed on, unsurprised.
In the next street a breathless creature came running after her, a
tawdry, painted, dishevelled girl. She stopped Ideala and stood
panting, with hot dry lips, and eyes full of animal suffering. Her
clothes exhaled the smell of some vile scent that was overpowering.
Involuntarily Ideala shrank from her, and all the joy left her face.
"I've run"--the girl gasped--"such a way--they said you'd gone this
road. I've waited about all day to catch you. Come, for God's sake!"
"But where?"
"There's a girl dying"--and she clutched Ideala's arm, trying to drag
her along with her--"or she would die and have done with it, but she
can't till she's seen you. She've something on her mind--something to
tell you. Come, my lady, come, for the love of the Lord and the Blessed
Virgin. No harm'll happen to you." Ideala made a gesture. "Show me the
way," she said. "But you don't seem able to walk. There's an empty cab
coming. Get in and tell the man where to drive to."
They stopped at a row of many-storeyed houses in a low by-street. A
stout elderly woman with an evil countenance met them at the door. She
began some speech in a cringing tone to Ideala, but the tawdry girl
pushed her aside rudely.
"Hold your jaw, and get out of the way," she said. "I'll show the lady
up."
The woman muttered something which Ideala fortunately did not hear, and
let them pass. They went upstairs to the very top of the house, and
entered a low room, furnished with a broken chair and a small bed only.
On the bed lay a girl, who, in spite of disease and approaching death,
looked not more than twenty, and was probably two years younger. She
turned her haggard face to the door as it opened, and a gleam of
satisfaction caused her eyes to dilate when she saw Ideala. They were
large dark eyes, but her face was so distorted with suffering and
discoloured by disease, it was impossible to imagine what it once had
been.
"Here she is, Polly," said the Tawdry One, triumphantly. "I said I'd
bring her, now didn't I?"
Ideala knelt down by the bed.
"My! but you're a game un!" said the Tawdry One, admiringly. "You ain't
afraid of catching nothing! Now, I'd have asked what was up before I'd
have done that; and I wouldn't touch her with the tongs, nor stay in
the room with her was it ever so. You just holler when you want me and
I'll come back." And so saying she left them.
"You are not afraid to touch me--you don't mind?" said the dying girl
when Ideala had taken off her gloves, and knelt, holding her hands.
"Afraid? Mind?" Ideala whispered, her eyes full of pity. "I only wish
you would let me do something for you."
At that moment they were startled by an uproar downstairs. A man and
woman were quarrelling at the top of their voices. At first only their
tones were audible, but these grew more distinct, and in a few seconds
Ideala could hear what was said, and it was evident that the combatants
were approaching.
"I tell you the lady's all right," the woman Ideala had seen downstairs
was heard to shriek, with sundry vile epithets. "Polly's dying, and
she've come to visit her."
"Seein' 's believin'," the man rejoined, doggedly. "Just show me the
lady and shut up, you foul-mouthed devil you."
The door was flung open, and there stood the fat harridan, and towering
over her was a great red-haired policeman, who seemed both relieved and
abashed when he saw Ideala.
"What is the meaning of this?" she said, rising, and drawing herself up
indignantly. "Don't you see how ill this girl is? Such an uproar at
such a time is indecent."
The woman shrank from her gaze and slunk away. The policeman wiped his
hot face with a red handkerchief.
"I saw the girl fetch you here, ma'am," he said, apologetically, "and I
thought it was a trap. It ain't safe for a woman, let alone a lady, to
come to no such a place. I'll just wait and see you safe out of it."
He shut the door, and Ideala heard him walking up and down on the
landing outside.
The dying girl seemed scarcely conscious of what was passing. Ideala
looked round for something to revive her. There was not even a cup of
water in the room. She knelt once more beside the bed, and raised her
in her arms, and let her head rest on her shoulder. All the mother in
her was throbbing with tenderness for this poor outcast. The girl drew
a long deep sigh.
"Could you take anything?" Ideala asked.
"No, lady, not now. The thirst was awful awhile ago, and I cried and
cried, although I knew no one would listen to me, or come if they
heard. They'd rather we'd die when we get ill. It's a bad thing for the
house." She could only speak in gasps.
"And what have you had?" Ideala asked.
"The scarlet fever, ma'am. There's an awful bad kind about, and I
caught it. They all die that gets it."
Ideala drew her closer, and laid her own cool cheek on her damp
forehead.
"Tell me why you wished to see me," she said. "You are so good," the
girl answered--"I thought you'd better know--and get--away from--that
low brute." Ideala understood, and would fain have stopped the story,
but it seemed a relief to the girl to speak, and so she listened. It
was the old story, the old story aggravated by every incident that
could make it more repulsive--and her husband was the hero of it.
"Shall I go to hell?" the girl asked, shrinking closer.
"For these Christ died," Ideala murmured. The words flashed through her
mind, and the meaning of them was new to her. Her heart was wrung for
the desolate girl, dying alone in sin and sorrow without a creature to
care for her--dying alone in the arms of a strange woman, with a
policeman outside guarding her. Ideala cried in her heart with an
exceeding bitter cry: "God do so to him, and more also."
"Pray for me, lady."
But Ideala could not pray with a curse on her lips--and, besides, the
power to pray had been taken from her for many a weary day before that.
She thought of the policeman, and called him in.
"See, she is dying," she said, looking up at him helplessly; "and she
has asked me to pray, and I can't. Will you?"
And, quite simply and reverently, as if it had been part of his
ordinary duty, he took off his helmet and knelt down, a great rough-
looking man in a hideous dress, and prayed: "Dear Lord, forgive her!"
They were the last words she heard.