The group which Lord Ascot had seen through the glass doors, consisted of Charles, the coachman’s son, the coachman, and Mr. Sloane. Charles and the coachman’s son had got hold of a plan of the battle of Balaclava, from the Illustrated London News, and were explaining the whole thing to the two older men, to their great delight. The four got enthusiastic and prolonged the talk for some time; and, when it began to flag, Sloane said he must go home, and so they came down into the bar.

Here a discussion arose about the feeding of cavalry-horses, in which all four were perfectly competent to take part. The two young men were opposed in argument to the two elder ones, and they were having a right pleasant chatter about the corn or hay question in the bar, when the swing doors were pushed open, and a girl entered and looked round with that bold, insolent expression one only sees among a certain class.

A tawdry draggled-looking girl, finely enough dressed, but with everything awry and dirty. Her face was still almost beautiful; but the cheekbones were terribly prominent, and the hectic patch of red on her cheeks, and the parched cracked lips, told of pneumonia developing into consumption.

Such a figure had probably never appeared in that decent aristocratic public-house, called the Groom’s Arms, since it had got its licence. The four men ceased their argument and turned to look at her; and the coachman, a family man with daughters, said, “Poor tiling!”

With a brazen, defiant look she advanced to the bar. The barmaid, a very beautiful, quiet-looking, London-bred girl, advanced towards her, frightened at such a wild tawdry apparition, and asked her mechanically what she would please to take.

“I don’t want nothing to drink, miss,” said the girl; “leastways, I’ve got no money; but I want to ask a question. I say, miss, you couldn’t give a poor girl one of them sandwiches, could you 1 You w411 never miss it, you know.”

The barmaid’s father, the jolly landlord, eighteen stone of good humour, was behind his daughter now. "Give her a porkpie, Jane, and a glass of ale, my girl.”

“God Almighty bless you, sir, and keep her from the ark places where the devil lies awaiting. I didn’t come here to beg — it was only when I see them sandwiches that it come over me — I come here to ask a question. I know it ain’t no use. But you can’t see him — can’t see him — can’t see him,” she continued, sobbing wildly, “rattling his poor soul away, and do not do as he asked you. I didn’t come to get out for a walk. I sat there patient three days, and would have sat there till the end, but he would have me come. And so I came; and I must get back — get back.”

The landlord’s daughter brought her some food; and, as her eyes gleamed with wolfish hunger, she stopped speaking. It was a strange group. She in the centre, tearing at her food in a way terrible to see. Behind, the calm face of the landlord, looking on her with pity and wonder; and his pretty daughter, with her arm round his waist, and her head on his bosom, with tears in her eyes. Our four friends stood to the right, silent and curious — a remarkable group enough; for neither the duke’s coachman, nor Mr. Sloane, who formed the background, were exactly ordinary-looking men; and in front of them were Charles and the coachman’s son, who had put his head on Charles’s right shoulder, and was peering over his left at the poor girl, so that the two faces were close together — the one handsome and pale, with the mouth hidden by a moustache 3 the other,

Charles’s, wan and wild, with the lips parted in eager curiosity, and the chin thrust slightly forward.

In a few minutes the girl looked round on them. “I said I’d come here to ask a question; and I must ask it and get back. There was a gentleman’s groom used to use this house, and I want him. His name was Charles Horton. If you, sir, or if any of these gentlemen, know where I can find him, in God Almighty’s name tell me this miserable night.”

Charles was pale before, but he grew more deadly pale now; his heart told him something was coming. His comrade, the coachman’s son, held his hand tighter still on his shoulder, and looked in his face. Sloane and the coachman made an exclamation.

Charles said quietly, “My poor girl, I am the man you are looking for. What, in God’s name, do you want with me?” and, while he waited for her to answer, he felt all the blood in his body going towards his heart.

“Little enough,” she said. “Do you mind a little shoeblack boy as used to stand by St. Peter’s Church?”

“Do I?” said Charles, coming towards her. “Yes, I do. My poor little lad. You don’t mean to say that you know anything about him?”

“I am his sister, sir; and he is dying; and he says he won’t die not till you come. And I come off to see if I could find you. Will you come with me and see him?”

“Will I come!” said Charles. “Let us go at once. My poor little monkey. Dying, too!”

“Poor little man,” said the coachman. “A many times I’ve heard you speak of him. Let’s all go.” Mr. Sloane and his son seconded this motion. “You mustn’t come,” said the girl. “There’s a awful row in the court tonight; that’s the truth. He’s safe enough with me; but if you come, they’ll think a mob’s being raised. Now, don’t talk of coming.”

“You had better let me go alone,” said Charles. “I feel sure that it would not be right for more of us to follow this poor girl than she chooses. I am ready.”

And so he followed the girl out into the darkness; and, as soon as they were outside, she turned and said to him —

“You’d best follow me from a distance. I’ll tell you why: I expect the police wants me, and you might get into trouble from being with me. Remember, if I am took, it’s Marquis Court, Little Marjoram Street, and it’s the end house, exactly opposite you as you go in. If you stands at the archway, and sings out for Miss Ophelia Flanigan, she’U come to you. But if the row ain’t over, you wait till they’re quiet. Whatever you o, don’t venture in by yourself, however quiet it may Took: sing out for her.”

And so she fluttered away through the fog, and he followed, walking fast to keep her in sight.

It was a dreadful night. The fog had lifted, and a moaning wind had arisen, with rain from the south-west. A wild, dripping, melancholy night, without rain enough to make one think of physical discomfort, and without wind enough to excite one.

The shoeblacks and the crossing-sweepers were shouldering their brooms and their boxes, and were plodding homewards. The costermongers were letting their barrows stand in front of the public-houses, while they went in to get something to drink, and were discussing the price of vegetables there, and being fetched out by dripping policemen, for obstructing her Majesty’s highway. The beggars were gathering their rags together, and posting homewards; let us charitably suppose, to their bit of fish, with guinea-fowl and sea kale afterwards, or possibly, for it was not late in February, to their boiled pheasant and celery sauce. Every one was bound for shelter but the policemen. And Charles — poor, silly, obstinate Charles, with an earl’s fortune waiting for him, dressed as a groom, pale, wan, and desperate — was following a ruined girl, more desperate even than he, towards the bridge.

Yes; this is the darkest part of my whole story. Since his misfortunes he had let his mind dwell a little too much on these bridges. There are very few men without a cobweb of some sort in their heads, more or less innocent. Charles had a cobweb in his head now. The best of men might have a cobweb in his head after such a terrible breakdown in his affairs as he had suffered; more especially if he had three or four splinters of bone in his deltoid muscle, which had prevented his sleeping for three nights. But I would sooner that any friend of mine should at such times take to any form of folly (such even as having fifty French clocks in the room, and discharging the butler if they did not all strike at once, as one good officer and brave fellow did) rather than get to thinking about bridges after dark, with the foul water lapping and swirling about the piers. I have hinted to you about this crotchet of poor Charles for a long time; I was forced to do so. I think the less we say about it the better. I call you to witness that I have not said more about it than was necessary.

At the end of Arabella Row, the girl stopped, and looked back for him. The Mews’ clock was overhead, a broad orb of light in the dark sky. Ten minutes past ten. Lord Ascot was sitting beside Lord Saltire’s bed, and Lord Saltire had rung the bell to send for Inspector Field.

She went on, and he followed her along the Mali She walked fast, and he had hard work to keep her in sight. He saw her plainly enough whenever she passed a lamp. Her shadow was suddenly thrown at his feet, and then swept in a circle to the right, till it overtook her, and then passed her, and grew dim till she came to another lamp, and then came back to his feet, and passed on to her again, beckoning him on to follow her, and leading her — whither?

How many lamps were there? One, two, three, four; and then a man lying asleep on a bench in the rain, who said, with a wild, wan face, when the policeman roused him, and told him to go home, “My home is in the Tliames, friend; but I shall not go there tonight, or perhaps tomorrow.”

“His home was in the Thames.” The Thames, the dear old happy river. The wonder and delight of his boyhood. That was the river that slept in crystal green depths, under the tumbled boulders fallen from the chalk cliff, where the ivy, the oak, and the holly grew; and then went spouting, and raging, and roaring through the weirs at Casterton, where he and Welter used to bathe, and where he lay and watched kind Lord Ascot spinning patiently through one summer afternoon, till he killed the eight-pound trout at sundown.

That was the dear old Thames. But that was fifty iles up the river, and ages ago. Now, and here, the river had got foul, and lapped about hungrily among piles, and barges, and the buttresses of bridges. And lower down it ran among mud banks. And there was a picture of one of them, by dear old H. K. Browne, and you didn’t see at first what it was that lay among the sedges, because the face was reversed, and the limbs were —

They passed in the same order through Spring Gardens into the Strand. And then Charles found it more troublesome than ever to follow the poor girl in her rapid walk. There were so many like her there: but she walked faster than any of them. Before he came to the street which leads to Waterloo Bridge, he thought he had lost her; but when he turned the corner, and as the dank wind smote upon his face, he came upon her, waiting for him.

And so they went on across the bridge. They walked together now. Was she frightened, too?

When they reached the other end of the bridge, she went on again to show the way. A long way on past the Waterloo Station, she turned to the left. They passed out of a broad, low, noisy street, into other streets, some quiet, some turbulent, some blazing with the gas of miserable shops, some dark and stealthy, with only one or two figures in them, which disappeared round corners, or got into dark archways as they passed. Charles saw that they were getting into “ Queer Street.”

How that poor gaudy figure fluttered on! How it paused at each turning to look back for him, and then fluttered on once more I What innumerable turnings there were I How should he ever find his way back — back to the bridge?

At last she turned into a street of greengrocers, and marine storekeepers, in which the people were all at their house doors looking out: all looking in one direction, and talking so earnestly to one another, that even his top-boots escaped notice: which struck him as being remarkable, as nearly all the way from Waterloo Bridge a majority of the populace had criticised them, either ironically; or openly, in an unfavourable manner. He thought they were looking at a fire, and turned his head in the same direction; he only saw the poor girl, standing at the mouth of a narrow entry, watching for him.

He came up to her. A little way down a dark alley was an archway, and beyond there were lights, and a noise of a great many people shouting, and talking, and screaming. The girl stole on, followed by Charles a few steps, and then drew suddenly back. The whole of the alley, and the dark archway beyond, was lined with policemen.