"Then the door was opened, and we carried her in--no weight, bless you-- and lays her on the sofy. Doctor comes in his dressing-gown, takes hold of her hand, holds it a minute, and then lets it fall again. Then he holds his watch-case to her mouth, and you could hear the thing go `tic-tic' quite loud, for there wasn't another sound in the room; and then he lifts up one of her eyelids, and you could see her great black eye a-staring all wild and awful like, as if she was seeing something in the other world. Then all at once she gave a sort of shivering sigh, and I could see that it was all over. "Doctor takes the bottle from the p'leeceman, smells it, shakes his head, and gives it back again. Then they two has a talk together, and it ends in us lifting the poor thing back into the keb, and me driving back to where we started from; p'leeceman taking care to ride on the box this time. And what a set out there was when we got there! Fust comes the suvvant, after we'd been ringing a'most half an hour. She looked as if just shook out of bed; and there she stood, with her eyes half-shut, a-shiverin' and starin', with the door-chain up. As soon as we made her understand what was the matter, off she cuts; and then down comes the swell in his dressen-gownd. Fust he runs out and looks in the keb; then he rushes upstairs again; then there was a dreadful skreeching, and a lady comes a-tearing down in her night-gownd, and with her hair all a-flying. We'd carried the poor thing into the hall then, and she throws herself on her, shrieking out, `I've killed her! I've killed her!' kissing her frantic-like all the time. The swell had come down after her, looking as white as a sheet; and he gets the lady away, while p'leeceman and me carries my fare into a bedroom. "P'leeceman took my number, and where I lived; and swell comes and gives me two half-crowns; and then I took off and left 'em, feeling quite sick and upset, and glad enough to get away. "There was an inquest after, of course, and I had to go and give evidence; but somehow or other precious little came out, for they kep it all as snug as they could, and the jury brought it in `Temporary Insanity.' "Pull up here, sir? Yes, sir. _Star_ office, sir? Phew! didn't know as you was in the noosepaper way, sir, or shouldn't have opened my mouth so wide. Eighteenpens, sir; thanky, sir." "Co-o-o-me orn, will yer?" were the words which faded away in the Fleet-street roar. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. A WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE.