Thomas Guy, Alderman of the City of London, and M.P. for Taunton, who made his fortune by a printing contract, by buying sailors’ tickets, and by South Sea speculations, was little aware of what London would become in the Victorian era, or of the enormous amount of suffering and disease that would be reached and alleviated by the hospital of which he was the original founder. As you enter you have little idea of its extent. On each side are the residences of officers and medical men. Then you go under a porch, where students have their letters addressed them, and look into a spacious quadrangle, lined with wards, which were part of the original building. Further on are newer buildings and museums, fitted up for the use of students, and in every way skilfully planned for the accommodation of patients. On one side is a theatre for surgical operations, a dead-house for post-mortem examinations, and a little green, on which in fine weather patients are permitted to take a little exercise, and to congratulate each other on the fact that this time they have given the old gentleman, who is always drawn with a scythe and an hour-glass, the slip. Further beyond are the gates which admit the enormous mass of out-patients, who, alas! most of them require what not even Guy’s can give them—fresh air, good food, and a little more cash than they can manage to secure by their daily labour. It is rather a melancholy place to visit. Looking up at the long windows all round you, you can’t help thinking what human suffering lies concealed behind them, and misery defying alike the aid of doctor or nurse or chaplain. Science may do, and does do, all it can to make the place healthful. Thoughtful consideration may line the walls with pictures, and make the old wards gay with summer flowers, and the nurse may be the kindest and tenderest of her sex to whom we instinctively turn when in pain, and suffering for relief; but, nevertheless, you feel in a hospital as if you were in a city of the dying and the dead. Our Sal was at once carried to the accident ward, and taken care of by tender nurses and watchful surgeons. No bones were broken, but she was very much bruised, and the recovery, if she did recover, it was clear would be long and tedious. The chances were very much against her. Drink and evil living had wrecked her stamina in spite of the fine constitution which she had received from her parents and her early country life. Fever set in, and it seemed as if the poor woman would have sunk. She was often delirious, and her mind wandered. ‘There’s something that keeps her back,’ said her attendant guardian. ‘She has either committed some crime she wants to confess, or she has some secret of which she would fain get rid,’ and the physician was right. CHAPTER XIV. AN ENCOUNTER.