So Kate did not go back to prison, but in the country, many miles from London, she found a resting-place. Twelve months she stayed there, and those who had charge of her speak well of her; but they needed patience, for the passage from evil to good, from drink and lust to sobriety and cleanliness, is not an easy one; the old instincts will not die at once, and as a tiger lusts for blood or a caged beast for liberty, even so it must have been with Kate. Among my treasured possessions is a letter written upon a leaf from a copy-book. It is a strange document, but it speaks volumes to me, for it is from Kate, and God shall put that letter to her credit, for she learned to write. What it cost her to do so He only knows. But her twenty-five years could not be given back to her. Nature’s debt must ever be paid, for Nature knows no pity. So Kate’s health failed, and, before I knew about it, she was back in London, broken and almost dying. It was an ill-advised thing to send her to London, to step out of the station and no one to meet her or speak kindly to her, but so it happened. With an irresistible power the old instincts awoke. One wild night of debauch, one more conveyance to the police station, one more charge in a police court, once more to prison, once more homeless in the streets, once more to the infirmary ward, and death mercifully put an end to all, for Kate passed into the undiscovered country. And poor Kate is a type of many. For years I have hoped and planned for such; disappointment after disappointment has been my lot, and though here and there among them I have been permitted to see in restored character and happiness some results for my hopes, yet oftener still, when I have apparently been on the verge of success, and have been encouraged because of someone whom I hoped to save, God has stepped up and taken them out of my hands--I never doubt to make a much better job of it than ever I could. ‘For in a world of larger scope What here is faithfully begun Shall be completed, not undone.’ These wild, homeless women have always had an interest for me; their very hopelessness commended them to me. No one had pity upon them, therefore _I_ must; no door was open to them, _mine_ must not be closed against them. So some of the most notorious women of London have formed part and parcel of my family circle. I am glad it has been so, for my conscience is easy. I was there to try to save them, and I have tried; my wife has tried, and my family have always treated them with courtesy and kindly respect. For the beginning of good in many a vice-cursed woman has come from a knowledge of the fact that someone respected her.