While he sat by the fire, listening to that familiar ballad, Sir Oswald Eversleigh forgot his sorrow and indignation--forgot his nephew's baseness, forgot everything, except the voice of the woman singing in the deserted market-place below the windows. He went to one of the windows, and drew back the curtain. The night was cold and boisterous; but a full moon was shining in a clear sky, and every object in the broad street was visible in that penetrating light. The windows of Sir Oswald's sitting-room opened upon a balcony. He lifted the sash, and stepped out into the chill night air. He saw the figure of a woman moving a way from the pavement before the hotel very slowly, with a languid, uncertain step. Presently he saw her totter and pause, as if scarcely able to proceed. Then she moved unsteadily onwards for a few paces, and at last sank down upon a door-step, with the helpless motion of utter exhaustion. He did not stop to watch, longer from the balcony. He went back to his room, snatched up his hat, and hurried down stairs. They were beginning to close the establishment for the night, and the waiters stared as Sir Oswald passed them on his way to the street. In the market-place nothing was stirring. The baronet could see the dark figure of the woman still in the same attitude into which he had seen her sink when she fell exhausted on the door-step, half-sitting, half-lying on the stone. Sir Oswald hurried to the spot where the woman had sunk down, and bent over her. Her arms were folded on the stone, her head lying on her folded arms. "Why are you lying there, my good girl?" asked Sir Oswald, gently. Something in the slender figure told him that the ballad-singer was young, though he could not see her face. She lifted her head slowly, with a languid action, and looked up at the speaker. "Where else should I go?" she asked, in bitter tones. "Have you no home?" "Home!" echoed the girl. "I have never had what gentlemen like you call a home." "But where are you going to-night?" "To the fields--to some empty barn, if I can find one with a door unfastened, into which I may creep. I have been singing all day, and have not earned money enough to pay for a lodging." The full moon shone broad and clear upon the girl's face. Looking at her by that silvery light, Sir Oswald saw that she was very beautiful. "Have you been long leading this miserable life?" Sir Oswald asked her presently. "My life has been one long misery," answered the ballad-singer. "How long have you been singing in the streets?" "I have been singing about the country for two years; not always in the streets, for some time I was in a company of show-people; but the mistress of the show treated me badly, and I left her. Since then I have been wandering about from place to place, singing in the streets on market-days, and singing at fairs." The girl said all this in a dull, mechanical way, as if she were accustomed to be called on to render an account of herself.