"I promise it." "I will mention the name of the woman to whom I have referred, or, it will be more correct to say, the name by which she is known to you. Mrs. Turner." "You mean her no harm, sir?" "None. I am prepared to befriend her, to save her, if my conditions are accepted." Dr. Spenlove drew a deep breath of relief. He would go to his new field of labours with a light heart if this unhappy woman were saved. "You have come at a critical moment," he said, "and you have accurately described the position in which she is placed. But how can my mediation, or the mediation of any man, be necessary in such a case? She will hail you as her saviour and the saviour of her babe. Hasten to her immediately, dear sir; or perhaps you do not know where she lives, and wish me to take you to her? I am ready. Do not let us lose a moment, for every moment deepens her misery." He did not observe the frown which passed into Mr. Gordon's face at his mention of the child; he was so eager that his hat was already on his head and his hand on the handle of the door. Mr. Gordon did not rise from his chair. "You are in too great a hurry, Dr. Spenlove. Be seated, and listen to what I have to say. You ask how your mediation can avail. I answer, in the event of her refusal to accept the conditions upon which I am ready to marry her." "To marry her!" exclaimed Dr. Spenlove. "To marry her," repeated Mr. Gordon. "She is not a married woman, and her real name need not be divulged. When you hear the story I am about to relate, when you hear the conditions, the only conditions, upon which I will consent to lift her from the degraded depths into which she has fallen, you will understand why I desire your assistance. You will be able to make clear to her the effect of her consent or refusal upon her destiny and the destiny of her child; you will be able to use arguments which are in my mind, but to which I shall not give utterance. And remember, through all, that her child is a child of shame, and that I hold out to her the only prospect of that child being brought up in a reputable way and of herself being raised to a position of respectability." He paused a moment or two before he opened fresh matter. "I was a poor lad, Dr. Spenlove, without parents, without a home; and when I was fourteen years of age I was working as an errand-boy in London, and keeping myself upon a wage of four shillings a week. I lost this situation through the bankruptcy of my employer, and I was not successful in obtaining another. One day, I saw on the walls a bill of a vessel going to Australia, and I applied at the agent's office with a vague idea that I might obtain a passage by working aboard ship in some capacity or other. I was a strong boy--starvation agrees with some lads--and a willing boy, and it happened that one of my stamp was wanted in the cook's galley. I was engaged at a shilling a month, and I landed in Melbourne with four shillings in my pocket.