“My God!” bursts from the young man’s lips, but he says no more. The next moment he has pressed a couple of sovereigns into the poor lad’s hand, and is gone.
He wanders on through the same street. He takes no note of the name of it. His thoughts are far too busy for that. He is approaching another street, less lonely and better lighted than the one he is in. There are more people about, and he sees several women loitering up and down near the corner. Instinctively he crosses the street so as to avoid them. Two of them are making off after two men that have just passed by, the third is left alone. She spies the young duke at once, and runs across the street to cut him off. He sees he cannot avoid her, and pulls himself together. In another moment she is by his side, with one hand on his arm.
“Won’t you come home with me, dear?” she says softly. “Won’t you——”
“Peace, woman!” he almost shouts, as he flings off her hand from his arm. She starts back with a low cry, and he sees a face, young still, with traces of great beauty, but careworn and haggard with suffering. His heart is filled with a great pity; he feels that such sights as these are unendurable to him. He feels that he cannot face them.
“Poor thing, poor thing,” he says gently; “forgive me if I was rough to you. This is no place for you, my child. You look a mere child; are you not one?”
“I am eighteen,” she stammers.
“Eighteen, and so fallen!” he exclaims in a horrified tone. “Ah, child! get away out of this.”
“And starve?” she ejaculates bitterly. “Easy for you to talk; you are not starving.”
“Starving!” He utters that word with a peculiar intonation. It tells her what pity there is in his heart for her.
“Oh, sir!” she exclaims, “I would not be here if I were not driven to it. I don’t want to be here. I hate it; I hate it! It is my hard, hard fate, that I am here.”