Valentine and Julian regarded it, turning up their coat collars and instinctively thrusting their hands deep into their pockets. Two soldiers passed, pursued by a weary and tattered woman, at whom they laughingly jeered as they adjusted the cloaks over their broad shoulders. They were hurrying back to barracks, and disregarded the woman's reiterated exclamation that she would go with them, having no home. A hansom went by with the glass down, a painted face staring through it upon the yellow mud that splashed round the horse's feet. Suddenly the horse slipped and came down. The glass splintered as the painted and now screaming face was dashed through it. A wet crowd of roughs and pavement vagabonds gathered and made hoarse remarks on the woman's dress as she was hauled out in her finery, bleeding and half fainting, her silk gown a prey to the mud, her half-naked shoulders a hostage to the wind. Two men in opera-hats, walked towards their club, discussing a divorce case, and telling funny stories through the rain. A very small, pale, and filthy boy stood with bare feet upon the kerbstone, and cried damp matches. "How horrible London is to-night," Julian said as he and Valentine got into their cab. "Yes. Why add to our necessary contemplation of its horrors? Why go on this mad errand?" "I want you to see Marr," Julian replied, with a curious obstinacy. He pushed up the trap in the roof. "Drive to the European Hotel, in the Euston Road," he said to the cabman. "D' you know it?" "Yes, sir," the cabman said. He was smiling on his perch as he cracked his whip and drove towards the Circus.