"
"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?"
"Not in our neighborhood, sir. But I know of one within half an hour's
walk of us."
"Take the cab at the door; and, if you find him at home, bring him back
in it. Say I am waiting here for his opinion on a very serious case. He
shall be well paid, and you shall be well paid. Make haste!"
The woman left the room.
Kirke sat down alone, to wait for her return. He hid his face in his
hands, and tried to realize the strange and touching situation in which
the accident of a moment had placed him.
Hidden in the squalid by-ways of London under a false name; cast,
friendless and helpless, on the mercy of strangers, by illness which
had struck her prostrate, mind and body alike--so he met her again, the
woman who had opened a new world of beauty to his mind; the woman who
had called Love to life in him by a look! What horrible misfortune had
struck her so cruelly, and struck her so low? What mysterious destiny
had guided him to the last refuge of her poverty and despair, in the
hour of her sorest need? "If it is ordered that I am to see her again, I
_shall_ see her.
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