But the girl, what would become of the girl? In England, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, she would have been dismissed; in Holland that one last hope did not exist. She would be dismissed with her character considerably damaged and her chance of getting another situation entirely gone. What would she do? She had told him yesterday she could not leave, but was obliged to stay on at the Van Heigens'; although she had failed in the first object of her coming, and so had no motive for remaining, she had nowhere else to go. Perhaps she had quarrelled with her relatives; perhaps they could not afford to keep her--they were poor enough he knew. She had once said her eldest sister had lately married the nephew of a bishop; he remembered that, and he also remembered that, after his unfortunate visit to Captain Polkington, he had heard they were people with some good connections. But that did not mean that they could afford to help this girl, or would be delighted to receive her home under the present conditions. Rather it indicated that their position was too precarious for them to be able to do it. They would be bitterly hard on her--these aspiring people of gentle birth and doubtful shifts, clinging to society by the skin of their teeth, were the hardest of all. The girl could not go back to them; she could not get anything to do in Holland, or elsewhere--in Heaven's name what could she do? He asked himself the question with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the street. But the answer did not seem forthcoming. There was no good blinking the matter; the fact was obvious; the girl was hopelessly and utterly compromised; and he, aided certainly by untoward circumstances--for the sardonic interference of which, in such circumstances, a man of sense usually allows--he had done it. They had had their "holiday," without taking thought for the morrow, in the way approved by boys and dogs and creatures without experience. And here was to-morrow, knocking at the door and demanding the price--as experience showed that it usually did. The question was, who was going to pay, he or she? She had taken it upon herself as a matter of course; it seemed natural to her that the burden should be the woman's, but it did not seem so to him; among his people it was the man who was expected, and who himself expected, to pay. When he had grasped the situation fully and saw how she must inevitably stand he also saw at the same time and equally plainly, that he must marry her; nothing else was possible.