The tin candlestick had rolled away on the floor, and the candle had fallen out of it.  The first thing Max had to do was to replace the one in the other, and to get a serviceable light.  By the time he had done so he saw a movement in the girl’s body.  She was lying with her head on the floor.  He put his arm under her head to raise it, when she started up, so suddenly as to alarm him, leaned back against the wall, still in her cramped, sitting position, and glared into his face.

“Look here,” she said faintly, “I couldn’t help it.  You know—­I think—­I’m almost—­starving.”

“Heavens!  Why didn’t I think of it!  Poor child!  Get up; let me help you.  Come to this chair.  Wait here, only a few minutes.  I’ll get you something to eat and drink.”

He was helping her up; had got her on her feet, indeed, when she suddenly swung round in his arms, clinging to his sleeve and staring again with the fixed, almost vacant look which made him begin to doubt whether her reason had not suffered.

“No, no, no,” cried she, gasping for breath; “I can’t stay here.  I know, I know you wouldn’t come back.  If you once got out, got outside in the air, you would go back to your home, and I should be left here—­alone—­with the rats—­and—­that!”

And again she pointed to the curtained door.

Max felt his teeth chattering as he tried to reassure her.

“Come, won’t you trust me?  I’ll only be a minute.  I want to get you some brandy.”

“Brandy?  No.  I dare not.”

And she shook her head.  But Max persisted.

“Nonsense—­you must have it.  There’s a public-house at the corner, of course.  Come out on to the wharf, if you like and wait for me.”

It was pitiful to see the expression of her eyes as she looked in his face without a word.  She was leaning back in the wooden arm-chair, one hand lying in her lap, the other hanging limply over the side of the chair.  Her hair, which had been fastened in a coil at the back of her head, had been loosened in the fall, and now drooped about her head and face in disorder, which increased her pathetic beauty.  And it was at this point that Max noticed, with astonishment, that her hands, though not specially beautiful or small or in any way remarkable, were not those of a woman used to the roughest work.

She made an attempt to rise, apparently doubting his good faith and afraid to lose sight of him, as he retreated toward the door.  But she fell back again, and only stared at him dumbly.

The mute appeal touched Max to the quick.  He was always rather susceptible, but it seemed to him that he had never felt, at the hands of any girl, such a variety of emotions as this forlorn creature roused in him with every movement, every look, every word.

He hesitated, came back a step and leaned over the table, looking at her.

“I’ll come back,” said he, in a voice hardly above a whisper.  “Of course I’ll come back.  You don’t think I’d leave you like this, do you?”