"You are sure to drop into a newspaper appointment," replied Ezra, "and of course I will do my best for you."
"You're very good," answered Keith gratefully; "ha, ha, what queer tricks the jade Fortune plays us. I come to Melbourne full of poetic dreams, and find my fate in a pawnbroker's office--it isn't romantic, but it's bread and butter."
"You're not the first poet who has gone to the pawnbroker."
"I expect I'm the first that ever went on such good terms," retorted Keith shrewdly.
[CHAPTER V.]
A WOMAN'S APPEAL.
According to some writer, "Human beings are moulded by circumstances," and truly Kitty Marchurst, better known as Caprice, was an excellent illustration of this remark.
The daughter of a Ballarat clergyman, she was a charming and pure-minded girl, and would doubtless have married and become a happy woman, but for the intervention of circumstances in the form of M. Gaston Vandeloup. This gentleman, an ex-convict, and a brilliant and fascinating scoundrel, ruined the simple, confiding girl, and left her to starve in the streets of Melbourne. From this terrible fate, however, she was rescued by Mrs. Villiers, who had known her as a child, and it seemed as though she would once more be happy, when circumstances again intervened, and through her connection with a poisoning case, she was again thrown on the world. Weary of existence, she was about to drown herself in the Yarra, when Vandeloup met her, and tried to push her in. With a sudden craving for life, she struggled with him, and he, being weak for want of food, fell in and was drowned, while the unhappy girl fled away, she knew not whither.
A blind instinct led her to "The Home for Fallen Women," founded by a Miss Rawlins, who had herself been an unfortunate, and here for a time the weary, broken-hearted woman found rest. A child, of which Vandeloup was the father, came to cheer her loneliness, and she called the little one Margaret, hoping it would comfort her in the future. But the seeds of evil implanted in her breast by Vandeloup began to bear fruit, and with returning health came a craving; for excitement. She grew weary of the narrow, ascetic life she was leading--for young blood bounded through her veins--and she was still beautiful and brilliant. So, much against the wishes of the matron of the institution, she left the place and returned to the stage.
The Wopples family, with whom she had previously acted, had gone to America, and she was alone in the world, without a single friend. She called herself Caprice, for her real name and history were too notorious for such a public career as she had chosen. All avoided her, and this worked her ruin. Had one door been open to her--had one kind hand been stretched forth to save her--she might have redeemed the past; but the self-righteous Pharisees of the world condemned her, and in despair she determined to defy the world by giving it back scorn for scorn.