"I fear so," said Dr. Spenlove gravely.
It proved to be the case. The girl was dead.
The signing of papers and other formalities detained Dr. Spenlove at the police station for nearly an hour, and he departed with a heavy weight at his heart. He had been acquainted with the girl whose life's troubles were over since the commencement of his career in Portsmouth. She was then a child of fourteen, living with her parents, who were respectable working people. Growing into dangerous beauty, she had fallen as others had fallen, and had fled from her home to find herself after a time deserted by her betrayer. Meanwhile the home in which she had been reared was broken up; the mother died, the father left the town. Thrown upon her own resources, she drifted into the ranks of the "unfortunates," and became a familiar figure in low haunts, one of civilization's painted, bedizened nightbirds of the streets. Dr. Spenlove had befriended her, counseled her, warned her, urged her to reform, and her refrain was: "What can I do? I must live." It was not an uncommon case; the good doctor came in contact with many such, and could have prophesied with unerring accuracy the fate in store for them. The handwriting is ever on the wall, and no special gift is needed to decipher it. Drifting, drifting, drifting, forever drifting and sinking lower and lower till the end comes. It had come soon to this young girl--mercifully, thought Dr. Spenlove as he plodded slowly on, for surely the snapping of life's chord in the spring, time of her life was better than the sure descent into a premature, haggard, and sinful old age. Recalling these reminiscences, his doubts with respect to his duty in the mission he had undertaken were solved. There was but one safe course for Mrs. Turner to follow.
He hastened his steps. His interview with Mr. Gordon and the tragic incident in which he had been engaged had occupied a considerable time, and it was now close upon midnight. It was late for an ordinary visit, but he was a medical man, and the doors of his patients were open to him at all hours. In the poor street in which Mrs. Turner resided many of the houses were left unlocked night and day for the convenience of the lodgers, and her house being one of these, Dr. Spenlove had no difficulty in obtaining admission. He shook the snow from his clothes, and ascending the stairs, knocked at Mrs. Turner's door; no answer coming he knocked again and again, and at length he turned the handle and entered.
The room was quite dark; there was no fire in the grate, no candle light. He listened for the sound of breathing, but none reached his ears.
"Mrs. Turner!" he cried.
Receiving no response, he struck a match. The room was empty. Greatly alarmed, he went to the landing and knocked at an adjoining door. A woman's voice called.
"Who's there?"
"It is I, Dr. Spenlove."
"Wait a moment, sir."