Calm Death,—Thou comest not to such as these,—
Their griefs affright thee,—their sad faces fail to please.

Probably the length of time that elapsed (which seemed like an eternity to Elizabeth,) was, in reality, not more than half an hour before a ray of light greeted her eyes, coming through a ragged chink in the crumbling masonry of the heavy walls.

Creeping cautiously forward she put her eye to the crevice and looked eagerly into the inner room.

The scene she witnessed was well calculated to chill the blood of an able bodied man, but to a delicate woman, still trembling from the effects of her awful plunge into the river;—hampered by dripping garments and nearly frantic with the fear of momentary violence, the sight was more than doubly horrible.
 
The room was nothing more than a large vault or closet built into the solid walls, probably for no definite purpose, but so well adapted to its present use that one would think its designer must have foreseen its ultimate fate.

Several battered and smoking lanterns hung on nails, which had been wedged firmly between loose bricks in the decaying walls, their outlines appearing to her excited imagination not unlike the red eye balls and smoke begrimed faces of the score of beings upon whom their dismal glimmer fell.

This score of individuals, representing a class of monsters, born in the slime of cellars; nourished on the odors of decomposition and trained to accomplishments of vice and evil, were busy at the ghoulish work of robbing two human bodies, whose swollen and livid members plainly proclaimed them trophies from the river\'s unfailing supply.

Ragged females with bloated faces and keen eyes were squabbling like cats over the articles which had been removed from the dead woman\'s body, while the males cursed and struck at each[Pg 28] other in a frantic struggle for the watch and jewels which the other water-soaked victim had worn.

The scene was horrible, pile upon pile of rubbish was heaped about the room, and one and all seemed interested in claiming and getting possession of as much plunder as they could, by fair means or foul.

Elizabeth plainly identified her rescuers who were among the most quarrelsome of the lot, but, even in her bewilderment, she noticed that there was no mention made of their evenings work or of her body, which, of course, they supposed was safe in the recesses of that loathsome cellar.

At this instant a vague thought flitted through her mind as to what booty her body had afforded them. She felt for her rings, but they were gone. She thrust her hand into the bosom of her dress for her watch, and her lips grew white as ashes, while a new horror, passing through her brain, overcame for the moment all fear of personal violence. The paper which had been safe in her bosom when she sprang from the bridge was not there. She had determined that the secret which it held should die with her, but now that her plan for death[Pg 29] had failed, the recovery of that treasured paper must be the whole aim and purpose of her life.

Again the miserable creature who had rescued her from death became the unknowing instrument of her good fortune.

The young thief, whom she recognized as "Bill," became violently angry over the unequal distribution of the jewels and, throwing off his coat, struck wildly at his partner, while the others proceeded with their individual bickerings, apparently unconscious of the pugilistic encounter.

The coat in falling obscured, in a measure, Elizabeth\'s view of the inner room.

She had lost all thought of fear in her wild determination to secure the missing paper.

Pushing her hand cautiously into the hole in the masonry she dislodged a portion of brick with little trouble, then forcing her white arm carefully through the opening she touched the coat and pulled it gently aside.

Her idea was simply to gain another unobstructed view of the room, but accidently her fingers touched the edge of a folded paper protruding from the pocket, and quick as flash Elizabeth[Pg 30] closed her fingers upon it and drew it toward her through the hole. She could not see it, but the familiarity of touch and feeling convinced her that it was her bosom companion for the past ten months, and even in the excitement and danger of the situation she stood motionless for a moment while she pressed it fervently to her lips.

Then, taking advantage of a particularly noisy scuffle, Elizabeth slipped softly by the door. The terrors of nightmare were upon her. She imagined she heard them pursuing her but could not run for fear of falling in the darkness; pitching down some hidden trap or making some accidental sound that would tell them of her presence.

At last, after almost innumerable windings, a glimmer of electric light came down upon her through a cellar grating which opened directly upon the street. A little further on and another flight of worm eaten steps were before her. Up these she climbed, and raised, with all her strength a heavy grating, then, feeling once more the pure air upon her brow and the sense of freedom in her soul, she reeled and fell heavily forward, like an inanimate body, upon the damp, gray curb stone. How[Pg 31] long she lay there she could not tell, but the bell of a distant cathedral, tolling the hour of midnight, aroused her, and she crawled along until her strength in a measure returned, then, rising, she walked as quickly as possible away from this terrible neighborhood. On and on she went, her strength failing her at every step, until once more exhausted she sank down before the gateway of a large building, which, fortunately for her, proved to be a Hospital.

Here she was found by a resident physician on his return from the Opera in the early morning hours.

Some time during the following day an employee of the Hospital discovered a soiled and water-stained Marriage Certificate, which the wind had evidently blown behind the massive gates. The Certificate was placed in the physician\'s private desk for safe keeping, but no connection between it and the suffering woman was ever suspected.

Elizabeth was placed immediately in the ward, and every care given her, but for four weeks she hovered between life and death, raving of murder, robbery, suicide and all such frightful happenings,[Pg 32] until the anxious physician feared for her reason as well as for her life. It was not until her child was born, a month after her entrance, that she gained, either mentally or physically, but after another four weeks of excellent nursing she was discharged from the Hospital as needing no further treatment.

She had given the authorities a false name in an almost involuntary effort toward self-protection and the concealment of her degradation, receiving at their hands that disinterested and strictly impartial attention bestowed upon all their patients. She was to them but one of thousands who drift on the shoals of sin and are left to perish, or are floated off by the tide of life to a longer struggle and a fiercer death on the ragged rocks of crime, therefore it was only natural that her case elicited no special comment from the busy officials. Thus, sick at heart, homeless, friendless, with no money, and with her shame-born child resting heavily upon her arm, Elizabeth went forth once more into the streets of London.