Then she told him, with many tears; for the sight of him and the remembrance of his former charity touched the deep springs of sorrow in her poor outcast soul. She had indeed gone home, but not to stay. Soon after her return her mother had died, and her father had taken another wife; her life was not happy, and the taint of her shame still clung to her; and at last, in despair, she had drifted back to Brussels, finding all ways of life closed to her but one.
‘And since then, monsieur. I have suffered so much. I was never strong, and now I am—as you see. A year ago they took me to the hospital in my own country—would to God I had died there! but I came out, and after that I went from bad to worse. Two months ago I came with that woman to England. I thought no one would know me here, and now—is it not strange?—I meet with you.’
As she spoke, another figure came sauntering up in the full light of the lamp. It was Gavrolles, indifferent and happy, smoking his cigar. The moment the girl’s eyes fell upon him, her manner changed; and, to Sutherland’s astonishment, she uttered a cry, and rushed up to the newcomer.
‘Let me look at your face,’ she cried. ‘Quick! It is he!’ And she clung with strange fury to Gavrolles, who in vain attempted to shake her off.
‘Let me go,’ he said in English The woman is drunk. I will call the police.’
With a fierce shriek she raised her hand and struck at his face with her clenched fist.
‘You devil! You devil!’ she cried in French. ‘I have been waiting so long to see you, and now at last we meet. If I had a knife I would stab you. It is I—Adèle.’ ‘I do not know you!’
‘It is false. You are a liar and a devil.’
And she struck him in the face with both hands. Livid and trembling, Gavrolles threw her off; she fell back screaming, and would have fallen had not Sutherland caught her in his arms. While he held her she struggled madly, hysterical with an overmastering passion. A crowd of outcast women and well-dressed men already surrounded them, and a policeman, pushing his way into the circle, roughly demanded the cause of the disturbance.
Gavrolles forced a laugh.