She seemed to be dreaming--apparently about their meeting in Regent-street; or perhaps she was delirious from want of food. He walked on without attempting to answer her. Some great wrong had been done her, and his heart sank within him; for he believed in no judgment, no final setting right of wrongs. He knew of nothing better than that the wronged and the wronger would cease together. Certainly, if his creed represented fact, the best thing in existence is that it has no essential life in it, that it cannot continue, that it must cease: the good of living is that we must die. The hope of death is the inspiration of Buddhism! His heart ached with pity for the girl. His help, his tenderness expanded, and folded her in the wings of a shelter that was not empty because his creed was false. “She belongs to me!” he said to himself. “The world has thrown her off: 'be it lawful I take up what's cast away!' Here is the one treasure, a human being! the best thing in the world! I will cherish it. Poor girl! she shall at least know one man a refuge!” The cottage was a wretched place, but a labourer and his family lived in it. He knocked many times. A sleepy voice answered at last, and presently a sleepy-eyed man half opened the door. “What's the deuce of a row?” he grunted. “Here's a young woman half dead with hunger and cold!” said Richard. “You must take her in or she'll die!” “Can't you take her somewhere else?” “There's nowhere else near enough.--Come, come, let us in! You wouldn't have her die on your doorstep!” “I don'ow as I see the sense o' bringin' her here!” answered the man sleepily. “We ain't out o' the hunger-wood ourselves yet!--Wife! here's a chap as says he's picked up a young 'oman a dyin' o' 'unger!--'tain't likely, be it, i' this land o' liberty?” “Likely enough, Giles, where the liberty's mainly to starve!” replied a feminine voice. “Let un bring the poor thing in. There ain't nowhere to put her, an' there ain't nothin' to give her, but she can't lie out in the wide world!” “'Ain't you got a drop o' milk?” asked Richard. “Milk!” echoed the woman; “it's weeks an' weeks the childer 'ain't tasted of it! The wonder to me is that the cows let a poor man milk 'em!” Richard set Alice on her feet, but she could not stand alone; had he taken his arm from round her, she would have fallen in a heap. But the woman while she spoke had been getting a light, and now came to the door with a candle-end. Her husband kept prudently in her shadow.