Not knowing what to say, Doris made no answer. Was there in all the world, she wondered, a being more deplorably hopeless, homeless, and overwhelmed with trouble than she? Where could she turn? What could she do? It was out of the question that she should return to Yorkshire, where there was now nothing but ruin and disgrace for an Anderson. She would not encounter Mrs. Cameron again if she could by any means avoid doing so, and she had promised never to marry her son. Bernard would be sorry for her now, she knew, yes, very sorry indeed. Still he had shrunk from her and looked very strange upon hearing of her father’s misappropriation of his money and absconding, which was enough truly to seriously lessen his affection for her. Indeed, Doris thought he could no longer love her, in which case she had certainly lost him entirely. Father, mother, lover, all gone; cut off from friends by a black cloud of disgrace and shame, penniless and alone, terribly alone in a world of which she knew so little, amidst dangers more vast than she, with her limited experience, could imagine, what could she do? Surely God as well as man had forsaken her! She turned quite sick and faint. "Where to, lady?" asked the cabman again, and this time there was a note of compassion in his rough voice which appealed to Doris. She burst into tears. The man turned his head aside. He was one of nature’s gentlemen, though only a poor cabman, and it was not for him to look upon a lady’s tears. He stepped back to his horse the next minute, and pretended to busy himself with the harness. Doris had time to recover. In a few minutes she was able to check her tears. Then she beckoned to the cabman to approach. "I am in trouble," she said; "the friend to whose house you have driven me died suddenly yesterday----" She broke down pitifully. The cabman nodded. "That’s bad!" said he, looking down on the ground. "I don’t know what to do," added Doris in tones of despair. "There’ll be servants in this big house, won’t they take you in for the remainder of the night, at least," suggested the man. "I dare say they would if they were alone," answered Doris. "But there is a man in the house--I cannot call him a gentleman--who says everything is now his, and that I have no claim upon him, and he will do nothing for me." The cabman muttered something strong, and then broke off to apologise for speaking so roughly. "You’ll excuse me, miss," he added, "if I say I should like to punch the fellar’s ’ead. May I go to the door and make ’em take you in if I can?" he asked finally. "No, thank you," replied Doris. "I am poor and homeless"--her lips quivered--"but I am too proud to intrude where I am not wanted." She turned her head on one side. The horse started forward a step or two, and the cabman went to its head. A sudden gust of wind and rain swept over Doris through the open door, causing her to shiver. The man returned to her side.