Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/67

Rh and began to talk to her—or rather, to be exact, I tried to talk to her. It was a most difficult business. She seemed frightened out of her wits, she trembled, she stammered confused answers; her face was now a burning flush and now dead white. Then, of a sudden, she buried her face in her hands and burst into a storm of sobs.

"What on earth's the matter?" I cried, starting up; and then in a flash I knew the reason of her confusion and dread.

"Hang it all," I cried, bitterly mortified, "I'm not such a cad as that! I don't take advantage of a starving girl."

She let fall her hands, raised her head and looked at me with questioning, unbelieving eyes.

"I thought—I thought—" she muttered. "London is a wicked place. I've—I've always heard so. And I've been here three months—several times men have—have spoken to me—" She stopped with a kind of long sigh, and fell back in a dead faint. I suppose it was sudden relief on the top of an ecstasy of terror.

I ran for water and sprinkled it on her, then I poured some brandy into her mouth with a teaspoon. She was so long coming to that I grew rather frightened; but her pulse, though slow and weak, beat steadily. When at last she did come to, I gave her some more brandy, and she lay back very still, looking at me. I could not stand her