“Miss Bird has a shelter under this roof now, and while I live she shall never want a friend,” said Mrs. Peters, purposely confirming Rufus Black’s impression that Lally was a dependent, “but she has known such extremes of poverty as would make you shudder. She left her lodgings in New Brompton, turned out by an insolent landlady, having only the clothes she stood in. She went out upon Waterloo Bridge in her despair, to commit suicide. An unfortunate girl did commit suicide, springing from Lally’s very side and Lally’s handkerchief fluttering after the poor lost creature fixed upon her Lally’s identity. Lally fled from the terrible scene, and that night she slept upon Hampstead Heath, under the open sky, with tramps and thieves all around her in the darkness, and she knowing it not--homeless, houseless, penniless--” “O Heaven!” cried Rufus Black, in an uncontrollable agitation. “You think it terrible for a girl so young and beautiful? Listen. Worse was to come. She went to a poor old seamstress she had known when teaching music in a school. This seamstress gave her shelter and protection, but she was dying of consumption, and Lally had soon to work for her and nurse her, and after a little to bury her. When the poor woman died, Lally was once more homeless, and without work. She was nearly starved, and her one great desire was to look upon your face again, herself unseen. And so she wandered down into Kent--” “Into Kent? Oh, my poor girl!” “She was ragged and tattered, hungry and forlorn. She worked in the hop-gardens for food and shelter. She saw you--” Rufus uttered a cry of incredulity. “She did not see me!” he ejaculated. “I should have known her in any guise. I should have felt her nearness, had she been on the opposite side of the street.” Mrs. Peters’ lip curled. “You think so?” she said dryly. “Let me tell you that your wronged and deserted young wife was nearer to you than that, and yet you did not know it. Do you remember a certain September evening when you sat beside the heiress of Hawkhurst upon a way-side bank, in the shadow of Hawkhurst park? Do you remember your passionate vows of love to Miss Wynde? Do you remember telling Miss Wynde that your very life here and beyond depended upon her answer to your suit? Well, there was one listening to those passionate vows whom you thought dead. In the thicket, almost within an arm’s length of you, a poor worn-out, ragged tramp was lying for a brief rest--a hungry, houseless, tattered tramp, Mr. Black--and that tramp was your disowned young wife!” “O my God! Impossible!”