It would not be easy to describe Arthur’s state of mind as he returned homewards this Sunday night. Incapable of reflection, he reacted over and over again in his mind, with mechanical persistency, the scenes of the evening, and continued to intoxicate his senses by dwelling upon each fond word, each caress, each passionate look which he had given or received. The tumultuous character of his thoughts rendered him unconscious of all outward circumstances. Instinct alone guided him in the right direction homewards, and when he arrived before the house he could scarcely realise that he had walked all the way from Highbury.

He had drawn his latch-key from his pocket and was on the point of inserting it in the lock, when he became conscious of someone standing close behind him. Nervous from his excitement, he turned quickly round. He then saw that he was standing face to face with a girl whose shabby dress of worn-out finery was sufficient to indicate her character. At first the darkness prevented him from seeing her face, but there was something in her form and position to which his memory responded with the startling suddenness of a lightning-flash. His heart, a moment before so hot and bounding, seemed chilled to ice in his breast and checked his breathing as with a heavy load. A cold sweat broke out upon his forehead; he became deadly faint, and, had he not stretched out his hand to the wall, he would have fallen. It was as though some terrible supernatural shape had come before him in the darkness, and had pronounced his doom.

Though he opened his lips to speak no sound issued from them. He tried to move away from the door, but had not the strength to stir. The silence was first broken by the girl herself, who moved nearer to him, and said, “Arthur, don’t you know me?”

He knew her but too well, and his eyes by degrees perceived all the lineaments of her face; he shuddered at the dreadful change wrought in her once beautiful features by so short a period of vice and misery. Her cheeks had become hollow, and looked all the more ghastly for the traces of artificial colour still evident upon them; her eyes were red and bleared, with livid circles round them; her hair, cut short across her forehead, gave her a wanton, abandoned look; and the way in which she constantly shivered showed that her thin dress of vulgar frippery was almost the only clothing she had to protect her against the keen night air. For all that he knew her only too well, and not the soul of Belshazzar, when the finger wrote ruin upon the walls of his festive chamber, experienced a deeper revulsion of anguish than Arthur in this moment suffered.

Mechanically, he beckoned to her, and she followed him some distance into a by-street where there was no chance of his being observed by anyone that knew him. In the shadow of a lofty warehouse he stopped, and again faced her.

“Was it by chance you met me?” he asked, avoiding meeting her gaze.

“No,” she replied, searching his face for a glimpse of the old kindness, but seeing nothing save pale resolution. “I found out where you lived from Mr. Challenger, for I wanted to speak to you very much.”

“You had not asked for me at the house?”

“Yes, I had,” she replied, after a moment’s hesitation. “They told me you were out, and they did not know when you would be back. I was bound to see you to-night, so I waited near the door.”

“Did you tell them who you were?” asked Arthur, forcing his tongue to utter the question, though it was in the most fearful suspense that he awaited the answer.

“No,” said Carrie, “I only said as I wanted to see you — upon my oath, that was all! I was bound to see you tonight.”

“And why? What do you want?”

In his momentary relief at her reply, he had spoken these words with more of harsh sternness than he intended. She shrank back from him as though he had struck her, and burst into tears.

“Don’t speak so hard to me, Arthur,” she sobbed, leaning her head against the cold damp wall and covering her face with her hands. “Don’t speak so hard to me. You wouldn’t if you knew what I’ve gone through. I’ve been ill in bed for more than a week; and because I couldn’t pay nothing they’ve taken all my clothes from me. I know as I oughtn’t to be out at night now; I’m too weak still; it may be the death of me. And I came to see you and tell you this, and to ask you if you’d help me a little, just a little. You was kind to me once, Arthur, and you used to say as you loved me!”

Loved her! With mingled pity, remorse, and horror he heard her utter the words which that evening had been so sanctified to him, and was compelled to own that she spoke the truth. Yes; though he now shuddered in looking at her, though he drew back from her lest his hand, fresh from the clasp of Helen’s, should be soiled by the mere touch of hers, though the intervening sorrows and joys had removed to what seemed a distance of centuries those nights when he had watched beneath her window and been agonised by thought she might be unfaithful to him — for all that he could not forget that he had so watched, that her mere presence had once brought him ineffable delight, that he had kissed her lips and praised her beauty, in short that he had loved her. Love! Love! Could he use the same word to express the excitement of the senses which Carrie Mitchell’s prettiness had once had power to cause, and that holy passion which, ignited by the hand of Helen Norman, burned like a pure, unquenchable flame upon the altar of his heart? How he scorned his past self; surely he was another being now, with other thoughts, other feelings. And yet she stood there before him, sobbing with her head against the wall, shivering at every keener blast which swept along the dark street, and told him that he had loved her. His heart would indeed have been of iron had it failed to soften to the appeal of such a crushed and suffering creature. So keen was his compassion that he could have joined in her tears, and yet it was nothing more than compassion. No faintest spark of any warmer feeling lived within him. Save that she could appeal to bitter memories common to both of them, she was no more to him than any other wretched outcast starving in the streets.

“We mustn’t talk of that, Carrie,” he said, wondering as he spoke at the different sound the name had now to his ears than when first he learned to use it. “It is useless to remember it; let us talk as if it all never happened. You say you wanted to ask me for help. What do you mean by help? Do you mean you want money from me to enable you to buy fresh dresses and to go back to the old life?”

“No, no!” she exclaimed, eagerly, raising her tear-stained face. “Upon my soul, I don’t want it for that! I’ve done with that! I’ve done with it all for good! I’ve been thinking whilst I’ve been ill in bed that, if ever I lived to get up again, I’d never go back to that life. I hate it. It’s killing me fast, I know; I often wish as you’d let me die in the snow — that night as you found me. It would have been much better, so much better.”

“What do you intend to do, then?”

“If I had enough to buy a little better clothing, I’d go and get work. I’m not very strong now, but that doesn’t matter; I’d rather work my fingers to the bone at some honest business than go back again to the streets. I know I haven’t no right to ask you for anything, Arthur. When you was kind and good to me I didn’t know the value of it, and all as you did for my good worried me and made me wish for a freer life, like. But I’ve seen enough since then to make me wish as I’d never left you, Arthur. I know as I gave you a great deal of pain, but you mustn’t think of it. You must try and forgive me, for you shall never see me again; I promise you never shall. I shouldn’t have come to you now if I hadn’t been helpless and like to die in the streets for the want of something to eat. None of those people as I’ve been with knows as I was married. I wouldn’t tell them, Arthur, for fear some one might hear it as knew you; I never would.”

“And yet,” returned Arthur, after a slight pause, “you sent a woman to me with a letter asking me to pay some rent for you. Do you forget that?”

Carrie stared at him in perfectly natural surprise.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“Didn’t you recommend a landlady of yours to apply to me for money you couldn’t pay her?”

“Never! Upon my soul, never, Arthur.”

“Then I was deceived,” he replied, searching her face keenly. “She brought a letter as if written by you. I felt sure it was your writing.”

“What was her name?” asked Carrie, quickly.

“Mrs. Hemp,” replied Arthur, after a moment’s reflection.

“So help me God!” exclaimed the girl, “I never told Polly Hemp as I had a husband. Did she come and get money from you?”

“She did. I was foolish enough to believe her tale and to pay her.”

“I never knew; upon my soul I never knew!” cried the wretched girl, again bursting into tears. “But you won’t believe me, Arthur. It was my only comfort all through my wretchedness that I had never said a word of you. My God! How I wish I was dead!”

“If you tell me that I was deceived, Carrie,” said Arthur, profoundly moved by her despair, “I of course believe you. I didn’t like the woman’s appearance, and I can easily believe what you say.”

“You believe me?” she asked, checking her violent sobs. “That’s all I want, Arthur. I can’t bear you to think me altogether bad, and upon my soul I’m telling you the truth. I wasn’t so bad once, but it’s drink as has done for me. Oh, I’m so cold. Go away, Arthur; go home and don’t think no more of me. I’ll go and see if they’ll take me in at the workhouse, and if they won’t, I shall find some way of putting an end to my wretched life. Oh, my God! my God! how cold it is!”

She crossed her arms upon her breast and seemed to be endeavouring to warm herself, all the while muttering to herself and sobbing. Arthur was pierced with compassion, which he was, however, unable to express. Words of comfort seemed unmeaning before such wretchedness as this. There was only one way in which he could help her, and the sooner he put an end to this painful interview the better for both.

“If I gave you money to pay for a lodging,” he asked, “would you know where to find one?”

“Oh yes,” she replied, “I could easy do that.”

“And you promise me that you would use it in a proper way?”

“Oh yes, yes! So help me God, I would!”

At the beginning of the interview, Arthur had done his utmost to harden his heart against her, and, in his own interests, to leave her to her fate. But this had been only a momentary purpose. Such cruelty was impossible to his nature, and then reflection told him that to drive her to despair would most likely be the very way to awaken all her worst passions and to cause her to ceaselessly persecute him. He had not been at all prepared for the self-reproachful mood which the girl had shown, her suffering and repentance had touched him inexpressibly. But to do more for her than to give her the means of subsisting for a few days till she could find employment, if indeed it was her purpose to do so, was impossible. It must not be thought that he had not likewise his feelings of bitter self-reproach. Had he been free, had not this day been the commencement for him of an era of hope and bliss unspeakable, against the endurance of which Carrie’s very existence was a threat, then indeed he might have acted very differently towards her. He had to make his choice between her and Helen, but he never for a moment wavered in his determination. He suffered severely, he could not bear to look into the miserable girl’s face, and his conscience never ceased to whisper to him that he was committing a cruel wrong. Who could tell whether, even at this eleventh hour, the influence of constant kindness, the prospect of a quiet and comfortable home, might not suffice to save her? But he was not hero enough to sacrifice his life in order to save hers. Had she come to him with a brazen face and made mercenary propositions without shame or disguise, he could have either acceded or refused as his discretion led him, and without remorse of conscience. But, as it was, to give her only what she begged, mere charity, cost him terrible pangs. Already the dark shadow of clouds had encroached upon the visioned heaven of his future; he knew as he stood face to face with this miserable outcast, who was yet his wife, that what he was now about to do would haunt him till his last day. He knew it, yet he could not relinquish at once so vast a treasure as Helen Norman’s love. Better to die than to do so.

For about a minute they stood in silence, whilst these thoughts fermented within his brain. At length he spoke in the tone of one who had taken his part.

“I have no money with me,” he said; “will you wait here whilst I fetch some from the house?”

She nodded in acquiescence, and he left her. Within five minutes he returned.

“I am not rich,” he said, as he dropped some gold coins into her hand. “This is all I have, and I must borrow for my own necessities till I am paid again. Will it be enough for you?”

“Quite enough, quite enough,” she replied. “I shall be able to get into a new life with it. I knew as you’d help me, Arthur.”

“I hope you will do all you say with it,” he continued, forcing himself to speak in unbroken tones. “But I give it to you on one condition, Carrie. We must never see each other again.”

“No, no; never again,” she sobbed. “I know as we oughtn’t never to have met, and though I might once have lived happy with you, that is all over now. I shouldn’t have come to you to-night, Arthur, if I hadn’t been forced to, indeed I never should. Never as long as I live shall you see me again.”

He endeavoured to say good-bye, but the word stuck in his throat, he could not speak. Neither could he give her his hand. She did not seem to expect either, but, muttering a few words of thanks, hurried away into the darkness, leaving Arthur to his remorse.

Driven by supreme misery to one desperate attempt to free herself from the slough of a vicious life, Carrie had been perfectly sincere in all she said to Arthur. Oppressed by hunger, cold, and the results of a brief but violent fever, she had experienced a fit of bitter repentance such as had never before visited her. No degree of self-humiliation was too deep for her whilst in this mood, and, remembering with unwonted vividness all Arthur’s past kindness to her, she felt humbly grateful for the help he had rendered her. She did not look for more. At this moment the distance between herself and him she had called her husband seemed infinite. It is probable that few of her miserable class are without better intervals in which they realise with fearful pain the full extent of their degradation; and such a reaction it was from which poor Carrie was at present suffering.

Leaving Arthur, she went straightway to the only decent lodging-house in which she felt sure she might be received. This was that kept by the woman, Mrs. Pole, somewhere in Soho. Carrie knew nothing of the acquaintance existing between Mrs. Pole and Polly Hemp, and as in the circle of the social hell to which this poor girl had fallen, virtue is in a most emphatic sense merely comparative, she looked up to the former as to a model of propriety. Mrs. Pole was a drunken, low-minded, sensual creature, but yet she managed to keep a moderately respectable house, probably because experience had convinced her that it was most profitable in the end to do so.

As Carrie hurried along the cold streets, clasping the coins tight in her hand, numerous were the temptations which beset her. It is not easy for ordinary people to realise the agony of inward strife with which a nature, which has accustomed itself to limitless indulgence in any vice, struggles for the first time to throw off its allegiance to the tempter and follow the voice of reason. Every flaring gin-palace which she passed called to her with accents sweeter and more tempting than those of the sirens, and when, as often occurred, she found herself between two such places, one on either side of the street, it became a veritable struggle as between Scylla and Charybdis. She walked, when it was possible, along the middle of the streets, looking straight before her, that she might not see the inside of the bars, or scent the odour of drink which steams forth whenever a drunkard reels in or out of these temples of the Furies. She was so terribly cold; how one small glass of spirits would have warmed her. But by the exertion of marvellous resolution she escaped the danger. Arriving at Mrs. Pole’s house, she found that she had not miscalculated the woman’s temper. A trifle surly to begin with, when she thought that Carrie had come to beg for charity, she soon brightened up at the sight of the money. Carrie wanted a room? Of course; nothing could be easier. She happened to have a delightful little room empty. And Carrie rested that night with a more untroubled slumber than she had known for many wretched months.

Exactly a week after this, on the Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Pole’s kitchen was the scene of a rather interesting conversation, the conversers being the landlady herself and her occasional visitor, Polly Hemp. They sat, one on each side of the fire, in large round-backed chairs, for both were somewhat portly in shape, and fond of sitting at their ease. There was a blazing fire in the grate, which, as evening was coming on, did more to diffuse light through the room than the grated window looking up through another grating into the murky street. The kitchen was stone-paved, the stones being only hidden here and there by a rag of carpet, but one or two large mahogany dressers, together with an oaken press, a crockery-cupboard, and some other articles of substantial appearance, gave the room an air of moderate comfort. On the table, close by the elbows of both women, stood sundry jugs and bottles, as well as two glasses more or less full of a steaming liquor, from which they constantly took draughts to clear their throats. The two faces were a study for Hogarth: that of Polly Hemp, round, fair, marked with an incomparably vicious smile, the nose very thin and well-shaped, the lips brutally sensual, the forehead narrow and receding; that of Mrs. Pole altogether coarser and more vulgar, the nose swollen at the end and red, the mouth bestial and sullen, the eyes watery and somewhat inflamed, the chin marked by a slight growth of reddish hair. At the present moment both faces, different as were their outlines, vied in giving expression to the meanest phase of the meanest vice, that of avarice. In Mrs. Pole’s face the passion showed itself in every lineament; in Polly Hemp’s it gleamed only from the eyes. The latter was more skilled in concealing her designs than the lodging-house keeper.

“And how d’ye know as she’s here?” asked Mrs. Pole, at the moment when we begin to overhear their conversation. “That’s what I want to know. ‘Ow d’ye know it, Mrs. Hemp?”

“Well, if you must know,” replied the other, sipping her liquor, “‘tain’t so hard to explain. One o’ my girls see her comin’ out, and come and told me. Do you understand?”

Mrs. Pole was silent for a minute, apparently revolving something in her mind.

“Well, and what next, Mrs. Hemp?” she asked at length. “I s’pose as I can ‘ev what lodgers I like in my ’ouse, eh?”

“Of course you can, Mrs. Pole,” replied Polly, with much good-humour. “You don’t understand me right. I only come as a old friend of Carrie’s to arst her how she gets on. It’s a sort of friendly interest, that’s all.”

“I hain’t in the ‘abit of hinquirin’ much into my lodgers’ affairs,” returned Mrs. Pole. “She gets on well enough for all I know.”

“May be she isn’t in now, Mrs. Pole?”

“I don’t think as ‘ow she is, Mrs. Hemp.”

“Do you think she’ll stay long with you, Mrs. Pole?”

“I don’t know no cause why she shouldn’t,” replied the woman.

There was again a brief silence, during which both drank from their glasses, directing one eye on the liquor, one upon each other. And t............