"Mr. Rose," she said, "I had no idea that anything could be quite so sordid and horrible as this. Why! the very air is different!"
"My child," the great Socialist answered, his hand upon her shoulder, the pale face and mustard-coloured beard curiously merged into something very eager, and yet full of pity. "My child, you are as yet only upon the threshold of what we are bringing you to see. We have brought you to-day to these terrible places so that you may drink in all their horrors, all their hideousness, and all their misery, and transform them—through the alchemy of your art—into a great and splendid appeal, which shall convulse the indifferent, the cruel, and the rich."
"Let us go on!" Mary said in a very quiet voice.
They went on.
And now the houses seemed to grow closer together, the fœtid atmosphere became more difficult for unaccustomed lungs to breathe, the roads became more difficult to walk upon, the faces which watched and gibbered round their progress were menacing, more awful, more hopeless.
They walked in a compact body, and then suddenly Inspector Brown turned round to his little battalion.
He addressed Fabian Rose.
"Sir," he said, "I think we have arrived at the starting point. Shall we begin now?"
Mary heard the words, and turned to Fabian Rose.