"There is a remedy for every evil and every wrong," he said; "perhaps we could find one for you."
"There is no remedy and no help for me," she replied; "my troubles will end only when I die."
"Have you been sleeping under this hedge all night?" asked Hyacinth.
"Yes. I have no home, no money, no food. Something seemed to draw me here. I had a notion that I should die here."
Hyacinth's face grew pale; there was something unutterably sad in the contrast between the bright morning and the crouching figure underneath the hedge.
"Are you married?" asked Claude, after a short pause.
"Yes, worse luck for me!" she replied, raising her eyes, with their expression of guilt and misery, to his, "I am married."
"Is your husband ill, or away from you? or what is wrong?" he pursued.
"It is only the same tale thousands have to tell," she replied. "My husband is not ill; he simply drinks all day and all night—drinks every shilling he earns—and when he has drunk himself mad he beats me."