The girl seemed to gather herself together with a convulsive shudder, as though mortal cold had seized her. "No, I thank you," she said. "I am not ill. I am only dying by inches--dying of misery and bad treatment." It was such a weary young face that was raised to them. It looked so ghastly, so wretched, in the morning sunlight, that Hyacinth and Claude were both inexpressibly touched. Though she was poorly clad, and her thin, shabby clothes were wet with dew, and stained by the damp grass, still there was something about the girl that spoke of gentle culture. Claude bent down, looking kindly on the dreary young face. "There is a remedy for every evil and every wrong," he said; "perhaps we could find one for you." "There is no remedy and no help for me," she replied; "my troubles will end only when I die." "Have you been sleeping under this hedge all night?" asked Hyacinth. "Yes. I have no home, no money, no food. Something seemed to draw me here. I had a notion that I should die here." Hyacinth's face grew pale; there was something unutterably sad in the contrast between the bright morning and the crouching figure underneath the hedge. "Are you married?" asked Claude, after a short pause. "Yes, worse luck for me!" she replied, raising her eyes, with their expression of guilt and misery, to his, "I am married." "Is your husband ill, or away from you? or what is wrong?" he pursued. "It is only the same tale thousands have to tell," she replied. "My husband is not ill; he simply drinks all day and all night--drinks every shilling he earns--and when he has drunk himself mad he beats me." "What a fate!" said Claude. "But there is a remedy--the law interferes to protect wives from such brutality." "The law cannot do much; it cannot change a man's heart or his nature; it can only imprison him. And then, when he comes out, he is worse than before. Wise women leave the law alone." "Why not go away from him and leave him?" "Ah, why not? Only that I have chosen my lot and must abide by it. Though he beats me and ill-treats me, I love him. I could not leave him." "It was an unfortunate marriage for you, I should suppose," said Hyacinth soothingly. The careworn sufferer looked with her dull, wistful eyes into the girl's beautiful face. "I was a pretty girl years ago," she said, "fresh, and bright, and pleasing. I lived alone with my mother, and this man who is now my husband came to our town to work. He was tall, handsome, and strong--he pleased my eyes; he was a good mechanic, and made plenty of money--but he drank even then. When he came and asked me to be his wife, my mother said I had better dig my grave with my own hands, and jump into it alive, than marry a man who drank." She caught her breath with a deep sob. "I pleased myself," she continued, with a deep sigh; "I had my own way. My mother was not willing for me to marry him, so I ran away with him." Hyacinth Vaughan's face grew paler. "You did what?" she asked gently.