"I should be just as thankful to you if she objected. Don't think I under-estimate my draw-backs--I know that for you even to consider engaging me is generous. But----Oh, I'd do my best!--I would indeed! The difficulty's as clear to me as to you," she went on rapidly, "I see it every bit as plainly. See it? It has barred me from employment again and again! I'm a stranger, I've no credentials; I can only look you in the face and say: 'I have told you the truth; if I were able to take your advice and pocket my pride, I could _prove_ that I have told you the truth,' And what's that?--anybody might say it and be lying! Oh yes, I know! Doctor, my lack of references has made me suspected till I could have cried blood. Doors have been shut against me, not because I was ineligible in myself, but because I was a woman who hadn't had employers to say, 'I found her a satisfactory person.' Things I should have done for have been given to other women because they had 'characters,' and I hadn't. At the beginning I thought my tones would carry conviction--I thought I could say: 'Honestly, this tale is true,' and someone--one in a dozen, perhaps, one in twenty--would be found to believe me. What a mistake, to hope to be believed! Why, in all London, there's no creature so forsaken as a gentleman's daughter without friends. A servant may be taken on trust; an educated woman, never!" "She may sometimes," said Kincaid. "Hang it! it isn't so bad as all that. What I can do for you I will! Very likely my mother will call on you this afternoon. Where are you staying?" A hansom had just discharged a fare at one; of the opposite houses, and he hailed it from the window. "The best thing you can do now is to go home and rest, and try not to worry. Cheer up, and hope for the best, Miss Brettan--care killed a cat!" She swallowed convulsively. "That is the address," she said. "God bless you, Dr. Kincaid!" He led the way down to the passage, and put her into the cab. It was, perhaps, superfluous to show her that he remembered that cabs were beyond her means; yet she might be harassed during the drive by a dread of the man's demand, and he paid him so that she should see. The occurrence had swelled his catalogue of calls. He told Corri they had better drop in at Guy's, and glance at a medical directory; but in passing a second-hand bookstall they noticed an old copy exposed for sale, and examined that one. He found Anthony Brettan's name in the provincial section with gladness, and remarked, moreover, that Brettan had been a student of his own college. "'Brettan' is going up!" he observed cheerfully. "Now step it, my son!"