When she had escaped from her only shelter, half maddened and wholly despairing, with the voices of Craven Black and Mrs. McKellar yet ringing in her ears, her first impulse had been self-destruction. She had sped along the streets until, by a circuitous route, she had gained the river and a jutting pier, but it was daylight, and people were in waiting for the boats, so her dread purpose was checked, and she wandered on, wild of face and half distraught, keeping the river ever in sight, as if the view of its waters soothed her mad despair. Wandering aimlessly onward, she passed through foul river streets, where the vile of every sort congregated, but no one spoke to her or molested her. The shield of a watchful Providence interposed between her and all harm. Once or twice some ruffian would have accosted and stayed her, but a glance into her white and rigid face and wild unseeing eyes made him shrink back abashed, and she sped on as if pursued, not knowing the dangers she had escaped. She grew weary of foot, and to the wildness of her anguish succeeded a merciful apathy, which steeped her senses. The night came on; the gas lamps were lighted in the streets; the warehouses and shops were closed, there were fewer women in the streets; and in happy homes in the suburbs, at the north and south and east and west of the great teeming city, wives and daughters were gathered into pleasant homes. But she had no home, no refuge, no shelter. She had--oh, saddest of words, and saddest of meaning--she had nowhere to go! And so she plodded on, slowly and wearily now. She had traversed miles since leaving her lodgings, and it seemed as if her march, like that of the fabled Wandering Jew, must be eternal. At last, still wandering without aim, she staggered through the turn-gate and out upon the Waterloo Bridge, in the wake of a party of returning play-goers. No one noticed her, and she passed half-way over the bridge and sank down upon one of the stone benches, while the party she had followed went on and were soon lost to view in the Waterloo Road. She was alone on the bridge, in the night and darkness. Below her lay the dark river, with the small steamers puffing and glancing through the gloom with their tiny eyes of fire, and lowering their stack-pipes as they passed under the bridge. A few people stood at the landing below. Somerset House, dark and silent, like some gigantic mausoleum, lay to her left. Along the river banks were the great warehouses, long since closed for the night, and in the distance the dome of St. Paul’s reared its head, faint and shadowy, among the deeper shadows.