At last the cab stopped before one of the narrow doors, flanked with little iron railings, the usual parlour window over-looking a narrow little area. In the room above a light was burning, and all the rest of the house dark. A square printed advertisement of some trade was in the parlour window, just visible by the lamplight, and a painted board of the same description was attached to the railings. The door was opened by a young woman with a candle in her hand, which nearly blew out with the entry of the blast of night air, and flickered before her face so that it was difficult to make out her features. She gave a little cry, ‘Oh, it’s Mr. Wentworth!’ and bade him come in. To describe the sensation with which Wentworth realised his position, known and expected in this house, going up the narrow stair which was all that separated him from the sickroom, from the dying woman, between whom and himself he was thus acknowledging a connection, is more than I can attempt. There was no secret here--a man in the slipshod dress of a worker at home looked out from the little back room and asked, ‘Has he come?’ as he passed. On the top of the stairs an older woman, with the dreadful black cap of the elderly decent English matron of the lower classes, came out to meet him, and put out her hand in welcome. ‘How do you do, Mr. Wentworth? She’s that excited there’s no keeping her still: and I’m so glad you’ve come.’ In the face of all this, his heart sank more and more. He felt himself no longer on a mission of mercy, but going to meet his fate. CHAPTER IV.