One night, close upon the end of the year, a number of young men were standing at the bar in a restaurant of no great repute not far from Leicester Square, delighting their souls with congenial chat. One or two had before them glasses of suspicious-looking wines, others were content with more homely ale, and all soothed their spirits by luxuriant puffing at more or less evil-odoured cigars. Their talk was of the town, towny. One related to a couple of entranced listeners the story of a recent tête-à-tête enjoyed with some second-rate favourite of the ballet, his graphic rendering of certain passages — more entertaining than polite — being received with bursts of Homeric laughter by the youths who were drinking and smoking at his expense. Another group was listening to another conte moral, which had for its subject the exploits of a gentleman referred to as “Brandy Dick,” the climax of whose practical witticisms seemed always to be reached in the Police Court. “Brandy Dick’s” very latest piece of bravery proved to be of that nature usually referred to as “assault and battery,” and, having been practised upon the person of a woman was, of course, worthy of more than ordinary applause. Deserting with regret the company of these humourists, we must pay more particular attention to a third group, consisting of four young men of somewhat more staid demeanour. They were also occupied in smoking and drinking, and their faces bore the unmistakable traces of lax lives; but they evidently belonged to a higher grade in society than the other joyous spirits. Their talk was more earnest and in lower tones. Evidently they were engaged in going to the devil by a more decorous route than that pursued by the eulogists of “Brandy Dick.”

“Oh,” exclaimed one, who wore a spruce chimney-pot and a white waistcoat, “in my opinion Fanny’s played out. Drink plays the very devil with women; when once they begin they never know how to stop. She used to be something like a singer, but you should have heard her at the Alhambra last night. She was screwed to begin with, everybody could see that; and in the last act she was simply blazing drunk.”

“Well, I’m sorry for Fan,” drawled another of the quartette, turning round a diamond ring on his finger. “She’s so devilish good-looking. I s’pose she’ll have nothing else for it now but to take a turn at the poses plastiques. She’ll always draw there.”

“Now dash it, Jack,” interposed the third, with frank directness of manner, “I always did say you were a mean devil! If I’d known Fan as well as you have, hang me if I wouldn’t fork out a quid or two for her. I wonder she don’t bother you more than she does; I would, in her place.”

“Bother me more!” exclaimed Jack, with a curl of the lip. “Why it’s a whole month since I had anything to do with her, and do you think it likely she remembers me? No, no; her acquaintances are too numerous for that.”

The other three laughed quietly, with a refinement of cold-bloodedness which would have made a humane man shudder.

“Tell you what it is, you fellows,” broke in the fourth, who had hitherto occupied himself in alternately sipping his wine and winking at the barmaids, “if Fan has a right to bother anyone, it’s Whiffle. It’s my belief,” he added, lowering his voice, “that that girl has set Whiffle up in a good deal more tin than one ‘ud like to mention. He’s a rum devil, is Whiffle, and how he comes it over the girls as he does, beats me hollow! Why, there was Lily Parker, you know, the girl who did the cheeky business at the Strand! There was good stuff in Lily, let me tell you, and she was fast getting to be a favourite, but she got so spooney on Whiffle that she let him drain her of every penny she made. What’s the result? She’s kicking up her heels at one of the Music Halls for a shilling a night, and Whiffle ‘ud see her hanged before he forked out a tanner for her.”

“Aye,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, after a moment’s silence, “but I’ve a notion Whiffle has met his match.” And he nodded his head, and winked one eye after the other, in an extremely knowing manner.

“Met his match?” asked the one called Jack. “What do you mean, Smales?”

Mr. Smales continued to smoke for a few moments, as if in disregard of the question, only removing his cigar from his lips to exclaim “How do, Polly?” to a woman who entered the restaurant by herself and sat down at one of the tables.

“I know well enough what he means,” said the fourth gentleman, at length, also assuming a deep look. “Yes, I should decidedly say that Whiffle has found his match.”

“What the deuce do you fellows mean?” cried Jack, waxing a trifle warm with impatience. “Why can’t you tell it out at once without so much mystery?”

“Don’t get excited, Jack,” interposed Smales, with a smile. “Haven’t you noticed that Whiffle has fought shy of the Argyle and the other places about here lately?”

“Why, yes. I wondered where the deuce he’d gone to.”

“Well, he has a good reason,” began Smales, when the one who appeared to share the mystery with him broke in like Marcellus in the ghost scene.

“Look!” he whispered. “Here she comes.”

All eyes were turned to the doorway, when there entered a tall girl, showily dressed, with features of considerable beauty, but spoiled by thick daubs of paint applied to conceal the pallor of the cheeks. Her face wore a devil-may-care expression very attractive to those who were not induced to reflect upon its probable significance. Her eyes had that bleared, indistinct appearance so common in girls of the town, and her features afforded numerous indications of the ruin she was bringing upon her constitution by excessive drinking. By her air and dress she appeared to belong to the aristocracy of the demimonde. Her hair was of the colour of dark gold, a hue too rich to be natural, and hung in a long single plait down to her waist. As she entered she threw back a heavy palet?t, which the coldness of the night rendered necessary, and displayed a robe of dark blue silk, the front of which gave to view the curves of a magnificent throat and bosom. After one quick glance round the room, in which she appeared to recognise only one person, she walked straight to the table at which the woman, addressed as Polly, had seated herself, and, after exchanging a few whispers with her, also assumed a seat, demanding two glasses of sherry from a waiter who passed.

Our four friends followed her with glances expressing more or less open admiration.

“Damn me!” exclaimed Jack, in a whisper, “I’ve seen that girl everywhere lately, and I’ve often meant to ask some fellow who the devil she was. Now, Smales, out with this story of yours, and don’t keep a chap so long waiting. Is that Whiffle’s match?”

Mr. Smales replied by an affirmative wink.

“And what’s more,” he added, “I’ll wager a thousand to one she’s after him to-night.”

“Ho, ho!” chuckled one of the others. “She sticks to his heels, does she? But, upon my word, she’s a devilish fine girl!”

“Drinks like a fish!” put in Smales, with an expressive nod of the head. “Didn’t you notice she lurched a little as she came in?”

“But who in the name of fate is she?” asked Jack.

“Don’t know,” replied Smales, “but I’ve a shrewd notion it was Whiffle who first got her into a scrape; and now I’ll bet he’d give a little to be rid of her. She lived with him somewhere up Bayswater way for a month or two. Then, I’ve heard, she gave him the slip with some lord or other — the devil knows who; and now she’s just on the streets again.”

“What’s her name?”

“Carrie — that’s all I know. But just stop a minute, and I’ll go and speak to Polly Hemp. If those two are up to something here, we may as well stop and see the fun.”

So, trimming his hat, and pulling down his white waistcoat, Mr. Smales picked up his cane and sauntered towards the table at which the two girls were sitting. Leaning on the back of a chair he talked to them for some five minutes, during which his companions eyed him impatiently. Then he returned with a peculiar smile about his lips.

“Well?” exclaimed Jack.

“All right, old boy,” returned the other. “It is as I thought. If we stay here a quarter of an hour longer we shall have a lark. You know Whiffle’s strong at the cards; to tell you the truth, I think that’s how he lives chiefly when he’s no miserable devil of a girl to keep him. Well, Polly Hemp knows that, and she’s promised to bring some deluded fool or other with lots of money to meet him here. But that’s only a trick, do you see, to coax Whiffle out of his hole, so that Carrie may get hold of him. It seems Carrie’s devilish hard up just now, and she’s promised Polly so much out of every quid she gets from Whiffle. Good dodge, eh?”

The three laughed in a subdued chorus, then reflected for a moment upon the scene in preparation. All looked at their watches. It was eleven, and at a quarter past Mr. Augustus Whiffle was expected. It was necessary to find some new topic to pass away the intervening time, and this was introduced by the gentleman addressed as Jack.

“Been at the Eau de Vie, lately, Hawker?” he inquired of the most silent of the party; a consumptive-looking youth with a yellow tie and staring gloves to match.

“Was there the other night,” replied Hawker, biting the end off a new cigar. Tremendous row. Jackson — you know him, Smales; Billy Jackson, the big bully you used to meet in the city — he found himself cheated at some game or other by Waghorn, so he got up and shouted out so that all in the room could hear him: ‘You’re an infernal cheat, Waghorn, and that’s all you come here for.’ Waghorn was a little screwed, and jumped out and yelled: ‘And you’re an infernal liar, Jackson, and it’s not the first time I’ve told you so.’ Then there was a scuffle, and Jackson knocked Waghorn down; the cleanest hit from the shoulder I’ve seen for many a day. My stars! It did me good!”

The others laughed heartily.

“That Waghorn’s a rum fellow,” put in Smales. “I could tell you a tale or two about him, and one particularly that Maggie Twill told me the other night at Evans’s. You know Waghorn has a big house somewhere up Regent’s Park way, and plays the nob when he’s at home. I believe he’s devilish rich, or at least was, for I should think wine and women must have made a pretty big hole in his pocket. Well, Maggie Twill and two or three other girls had been having supper with him at Evans’s, and the end of it was, as usual, that Waghorn got pretty well screwed. So Maggie, who was in for a lark, asked him whether he wasn’t going to take them all home with him, it would be so much better than his going home with one of them. And — sure enough! — at last they talked old Waghorn over into taking them all with him. So they squeezed into a cab and went off, and when they got to the old fool’s house he showed them into his drawing-room, and brought out his best wine, and they all began to kick up an awful shindy. This was between one and two in the morning, mind. Well, just when the row had got to its height, and when old Waghorn, with his arm around two of the girls, was dancing round the room, suddenly the door opened, and Mrs. Waghorn made her appearance in a dressing-gown and with a wrapper round her. Maggie says her eyes flashed fire and she looked like the very devil. But she only waited for a minute, then slammed the door terrifically and disappeared. What a joke it must have been!”

The laughter which greeted this story was uproarious, but it was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of no less a person than Mr. Augustus Whiffle. All eyes turned rapidly from him to the table where the girls were sitting. Polly had faced round and was beckoning to the new-comer, but her companion was completely hidden behind a large newspaper she affected to be reading. With a nod to the assembled gentlemen, Augustus, whose “get up” was the perfection of dandyism, sauntered in the direction of the beckoning girl. As soon as he had reached the table, the newspaper which had concealed the other, fell, and his face paled slightly as he found himself before Carrie.

“Awfully sorry,” said Polly, with a rather malicious grin. “I couldn’t persuade the gentleman to come to-night, so I looked in with a lady friend of yours. I thought you’d, maybe, like to see her.”

Whiffle leaned forward on the marble-topped table, with his back to the bar, as if conscious that so many eyes were watching him, and spoke to Carrie with suppressed anger.

“What do you want with me now?” he asked. “You’ll gain nothing, you know, by making a scene here, so you might as well talk quietly.”

“You know very well what I want,” replied Carrie, tossing her head slightly, and avoiding his eye. “You owe me a five-pound note, and want to get out of paying it.”

“Owe it you? For what?”

“Didn’t you promise me a five-pound note when I left you and went to live with you know who? And didn’t I promise you in return that I wouldn’t ask you for any more money as long as I lived?”

“Promise you five pounds!” repeated Whiffle, with quiet scorn. “I never promised you anything at all — except the lock-up if you come pestering me any more.”

Those parts of Carrie’s features which were not smeared with rouge turned deadly pale. Her eyes flashed terrible anger, and for a moment her fist clenched as though she would have struck him.

“You’re a devil!” she hissed out, close to his face. “You’ve been a curse to me twice now. If it hadn’t been for you I might have been a respectable girl still, and when I had a chance of going back to a quiet life you came and enticed me away again.”

And she uttered curse after curse, in a tone clearly audible to the young men at the bar, who laughed aside with the utmost glee.

“Carrie, you’re a —— fool,” replied Whiffle, endeavouring to appear calm. “If you’re short of money you know how to get it, well enough, without sponging on me for it. Go to your husband and get it from him!”

Carrie’s face now flushed a deep red, and for a moment she could not speak. A reply was on her lips when Polly Hemp, who had listened hitherto with a cool smile, broke in with an exclamation of surprise.

“Her husband! Why, I never knew as you was married, Carrie?”

“No more I am!” replied the girl, hoarse with passion. “No more I am! It’s one of that devil’s lies! He’ll say anything to spite me, and to get out of paying what he owes me. I look much like a married woman, don’t I, Polly?”

And she laughed, a bitter laugh at her own expense. Amid all the degradation of her broken life this terrible laugh was a proof that there still existed some fragments of a better nature. In reply to the laugh, Whiffle smiled, and winked at Polly.

“You may think you’ll escape me,” cried Carrie, seeing that the young man stood up as if to go, “and so you may do tonight. But I’ll have the money out of you — if I steal it. You don’t mind stealing all I’ve got, and why shouldn’t I take what I can? So look out! You may laugh, but if I dash this wineglass in your face you’ll laugh in a different way.”

Her excitement had risen so high that she spoke in a voice audible to everyone present. One or two waiters ran up to prevent an outbreak, and, whilst they were enjoining silence, Whiffle quietly turned and walked out of the restaurant. Carne and her companion shortly followed, the former replying with a glance of the haughtiest scorn to one young man who was so daring as to invite her to drink with him.

“What did he mean when he spoke of your husband, Carne?” asked Polly, as they issued together into the street.

“He meant a lie, I tell you!” replied Carrie, turning fiercely on her questioner. “Husband, indeed! What have I got to do with husbands! Perhaps you believe I’m a married woman with children, do you?”

“Well, well, don’t look as though you’d eat me!” exclaimed the other, turning away her head with a laugh. “There’s no harm in asking a question, I hope, is there?”

This Polly Hemp was as evil-looking a personage as one could encounter in the streets of London. Not that she was ugly in her features, for she had, indeed, what some would call a fine face. But it was the expression of this face which impressed the beholder more than its mere outlines, and that was wholly and absolutely evil. She had greenish eyes, out of which gleamed malice, and cunning, and lust, and every bad passion which could be imagined as lurking in a woman’s heart. She had a habit of holding her lips slightly apart, so as to exhibit the remnants of a very fine set of teeth, which now had a fierce, resentful, tigerish air about them. In stature she was short, and rather stout. This woman could never have been other than evil-minded, but long years spent on the streets, and in all those nameless vicissitudes which, as a rule, render the prostitute’s life mercifully brief, had reduced her to something far more akin to beast than man. Of iron constitution, she still, at the age of forty, showed no sign of yielding health, though she drank desperately, and had several times been almost killed in the fierce brawls which were her delight. Among Polly’s numerous friends and acquaintances it was generally believed that she was saving money. Some said that she still looked forward to settling down to an old age of respectable comfort; and wits had been known to assert that she contemplated devoting her money to the erection of a church. In any case it is certain that, among Polly’s endless passions, avarice was that which she most carefully nursed. To obtain money she would do anything, her unscrupulousness being only matched by her skill in avoiding discovery. Such a woman was a hopeful companion for Carrie.

The two sauntered along side by side through some of the back streets of Soho. Carrie was gloomy, and but little disposed for conversation; but her companion seemed especially talkative.

“And what’s to be done now?” she as............