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, shirking 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 here?” he resumed, addressing himself to the woman again.

“The first floor back, sir.”

“Show me the way to it.”

He stooped, and lifted Magdalen in his arms.  Her head rested gently on the sailor’s breast; her eyes looked up wonderingly into the sailor’s face.  She smiled, and whispered to him vacantly.  Her mind had wandered back to old days at home; and her few broken words showed that she fancied herself a child again in her father’s arms.  “Poor papa!” she said, softly.  “Why do you look so sorry?  Poor papa!”

The woman led the way into the back room on the first floor.  It was very small; it was miserably furnished.  But the little bed was clean, and the few things in the room were neatly kept.  Kirke laid her tenderly on the bed.  She caught one of his hands in her burning fingers.  “Don’t distress mamma about me,” she said.  “Send for Norah.”  Kirke tried gently to release his hand; but she only clasped it the more eagerly.  He sat down by the bedside to wait until it pleased her to release him.  The woman stood looking at them and crying, in a corner of the room.  Kirke observed her attentively.  “Speak,” he said, after an interval, in low, quiet tones.  “Speak in her presence; and tell me the truth.”

With many words, with many tears, the woman spoke.

She had let her first floor to the lady a fortnight since.  The lady had paid a week’s rent, and had given the name of Gray.  She had been out from morning till night, for the first three days, and had come home again, on every occasion, with a wretchedly weary, disappointed look.  The woman of the house had suspected that she was in hiding from her friends, under a false name; and that she had been vainly trying to raise money, or to get some