employment, on the three days when she was out for so long, and when she looked so disappointed on coming home.  However that might be, on the fourth day she had fallen ill, with shivering fits and hot fits, turn and turn about.  On the fifth day she was worse; and on the sixth, she was too sleepy at one time, and too light-headed at another, to be spoken to.  The chemist (who did the doctoring in those parts) had come and looked at her, and had said he thought it was a bad fever.  He had left a “saline draught,” which the woman of the house had paid for out of her own pocket, and had administered without effect.  She had ventured on searching the only box which the lady had brought with her; and had found nothing in it but a few necessary articles of linen—­no dresses, no ornaments, not so much as the fragment of a letter which might help in discovering her friends.  Between the risk of keeping her under these circumstances, and the barbarity of turning a sick woman into the street, the landlady herself had not hesitated.  She would willingly have kept her tenant, on the chance of the lady’s recovery, and on the chance of her friends turning up.  But not half an hour since, her husband—­who never came near the house, except to take her money—­had come to rob her of her little earnings, as usual.  She had been obliged to tell him that no rent was in hand for the first floor, and that none was likely to be in hand until the lady recovered, or her friends found her.  On hearing this, he had mercilessly insisted—­well or ill—­that the lady should go.  There was the hospital to take her to; and if the hospital shut its doors, there was the workhouse to try next.  If she was not out of the place in an hour’s time, he threatened to come back and take her out himself.  His wife knew but too well that he was brute enough to be as good as his word; and no other choice had been left her but to do as she had done, for the sake of the lady herself.

The woman told her shocking story, with every appearance of being honestly ashamed of it.  Toward the end, Kirke felt the clasp of the burning fingers slackening round his hand.  He looked back at the bed again.  Her weary eyes were closing; and, with her face still turned toward the sailor, she was sinking into sleep.

“Is there any one in the front room?” said Kirke, in a whisper.  “Come in there; I have something to say to you.”

The woman followed him through the door of communication between the rooms.

“How much does she owe you?” he asked.

The landlady mentioned the sum.  Kirke put it down before her on the table.

“Where is your husband?” was his next question.

“Waiting at the public-house, sir, till the hour is up.”

“You can take him the money or not, as you think right,” said Kirke, quietly.  “I have only one thing to tell you, as far as your husband is concerned.  If you want to see every bone in his skin broken, let him come to the house while I am in it.  Stop!  I have something more to say.  Do you know of any doctor in the neighborhood who can be depended on?”