"Ef you please, Miss, I think we had better keep the cab," said Hester Wright; "I don't think there's any cabstand, not a long way from yere."
Charlotte spoke to the cabby, desired him to wait, then she followed Hester into the house.
"No, I have no children," said the woman in answer to a question of the young lady's; "thank God fur that; who'd want to have young 'uns in a hole like this?"
By this time they had reached their destination. It was a cellar; Hester was not so very far wrong in calling it a hole. It was damp, dirty, and ill-smelling, even to the woman who was accustomed to it; to Charlotte it was horrible beyond words. For a time, the light was so faint she could distinguish nothing, then on some straw in a corner she saw a man. He was shrunken, and wasted, and dying, and Charlotte, prepared as she was for a great change, could never have recognized him. His wife, taking Charlotte's hand in hers, led her forward at once.
"You'd never ha' guessed, Dan, as I'd have so much luck," she said. "I met our young lady in the street, and I made bold to 'ax her and come and see you, and she come off at once. This is our Miss Harman, Dan dear."
"Our Miss Harman," repeated the dying man, raising his dim eyes. "She's changed a goodish bit."
"Don't call me yours," said Charlotte. "I never did anything for you."
"Ay, but you tried," said the wife. "Dan and me don't furget as we heerd you cryin' fit to break yer heart outside the study door, and him within, wid a heart as hard as a nether mill-stone, would do nought. No, you did yer werry best; Dan and me, we don't furget."
"No, I don't furget," said the man. "It wor a pity as the old man were so werry 'ard. I wor young and I did it rare and clumsy; it wor to pay a debt, a big, big debt. I 'ad put my 'and to a bit of paper widhout knowing wot it meant, and I wor made to pay for it, and the notes they seemed real 'andy. Well, well, I did it badly, I ha' larnt the right way since from some prison pals. I would not be found out so easy now."
He spoke in an indifferent, drawling kind of voice, which expressed no emotion whatever.