"Is it Maynard, the banker's son?" she asked.
The second demon nodded.
"Then I must escape by the side entrance. When he gets tired waiting,
Mr. Smithers, give him La Sylphine's compliments, and let him go."
She glided past the demons down a dark and winding staircase, and out into the noisy, lighted street.
The girl paused an instant under a street-lamp—she was only a girl—fifteen or sixteen at most, though very tall, with a bright, fearless look—then drawing her shawl closely round her, she flitted rapidly away.
The innumerable city clocks tolled heavily—eleven. The night was pitch-dark; the sheet-lightning blazed across the blackness, and now and then a big drop fell. Still the girl sped on until she reached her destination.
It was the poorest and vilest quarter of the great city—among reeking smells, and horrible sounds, and disgusting sights. The house she entered was tottering to decay—a dreadful den by day and by night, thronged with the very scum of the London streets. Up and up a long stair-way she flew, paused at a door on the third landing, opened it, and went in.
It was a miserable room—all one could have expected from the street and the house. There was a black grate, one or two broken chairs, a battered table, and a wretched bed in the corner. On the bed a woman—the ghastly skeleton of a woman—lay dying.
The entrance of La Sylphine aroused the woman from the stupor into which she had fallen. She opened her spectral eyes and looked eagerly around.
"My Sunbeam! is it thou?"