In one of these he found that he had, apparently, lost his way. A random turn brought him to a squalid court with sloping, wet pavement and open doors disgorging, from inner darkness, swarms of children. They ran; tottered on infantile, bandy legs; locked in scuffling groups, screaming shrilly, or squatted on the ground, absorbed in some game. Gavan surveyed them vaguely as he wandered seeking an outlet. His eye showed neither shrinking nor tenderness, rather a bleak, hard, unmoved pity, like that of the sky above. He was as alien from that swarming, vivid life as the sky; but, worn as he was with months of nervous overstrain, he felt rising within him now and then a faint sense of nausea such as one might feel in contemplating a writhing clot of maggots. He threaded his way among them all, and at a corner of the court found a narrow exit. This covered passage led, apparently, to another and fouler court, and emerging from it, coming suddenly face to face with him, was Eppie. She was as startling, seen here, as “a lily in the mouth of Tartarus,” and he had a shock of delight in her mere aspect. For Eppie was as exquisite as a flower. Her garments had in no way adapted themselves to mud and misery. Her rough dress of Japanese blue showed at the open neck of its jacket a white linen blouse; her short, kilted skirt swung with the grace of petals; her little upturned cap of blue made her look like a Rosalind ready for a background of woodland glade, streams, and herds of deer. And here she stood, under that cruel sky, among the unimaginable ugliness of this City of Dreadful Night. In her great surprise she did not smile, saying, as she gave him her hand, “Gavan! by all that’s wonderful!” “You asked me to come and see you when I was next in London.” “So I did.” “So here I am. I had a day off by chance; some business that had to be seen to.” “And your father?” “Slowly going.” “And you have come down here, for how long?” “For as long as you’ll keep me. I needn’t go back till night.” Her eye now wandered away from him to the maggots, one of whom, Gavan observed, had attached itself to her skirt, while a sufficiently dense crowd surrounded them, staring. “You have a glimpse of our children,” said Eppie, surveying them with, not exactly a maternal, but, as it were, a fraternal eye of affectionate familiarity. “What’s that, Annie?” in answer to a husky whisper. “Do I expect you to-night? Rather! Is that the doll, Ada? Well, I can’t say that you’ve kept it very tidy. Where’s its pinafore?” She took the soiled object held up to her and examined its garments. “Where’s its petticoat?” “Please, Miss, Hemly took them.” “Took them away from you?” “Yes, Miss.” “For her own doll, I suppose.” “Yes, Miss.” Eppie cogitated. “I’ll speak to Emily about it presently. You shall have them back.” “Please, Miss, I called her a thief.”