Green Street, at that time, was very empty; and he now observed a little girl of about six drawing near to him and, as she came, kicking in front of her, as children will, a piece of wood. She sang, too; and something in her accent recalling him to the past produced a sudden clearness in his mind. Here was a God-sent opportunity! "My dear," said he, "would you like a present of a pretty bag?" The child cried aloud with joy and put out her hands to take it. She had looked first at the bag, like a true child; but most unfortunately, before she had yet received the fatal gift, her eyes fell directly on M'Guire; and no sooner had she seen the poor gentleman's face than she screamed out and leaped backward, as though she had seen the devil. Almost at the same moment a woman appeared upon the threshold of a neighbouring shop, and called upon the child in anger. "Come here, colleen," she said, "and don't be plaguing the poor old gentleman!" With that she re-entered the house, and the child followed her, sobbing aloud. With the loss of this hope M'Guire's reason swooned within him. When next he awoke to consciousness, he was standing before St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, wavering like a drunken man; the passers-by regarded him with eyes in which he read, as in a glass, an image of the terror and horror that dwelt within his own. "I am afraid you are very ill, sir," observed a woman, stopping and gazing hard in his face. "Can I do anything to help you?" "Ill?" said M'Guire. "O God!" And then, recovering some shadow of his self-command, "Chronic, madam," said he: "a long course of the dumb ague. But since you are so compassionate--an errand that I lack the strength to carry out," he gasped--"this bag to Portman Square. O compassionate woman, as you hope to be saved, as you are a mother, in the name of your babes that wait to welcome you at home, oh, take this bag to Portman Square! I have a mother, too," he added, with a broken voice. "Number 19 Portman Square." I suppose he had expressed himself with too much energy of voice; for the woman was plainly taken with a certain fear of him. "Poor gentleman!" said she. "If I were you, I would go home." And she left him standing there in his distress.