They drove to a wretched lodging-house in Gerrard Street, Soho, a dismal fetid den, presided over by a hideous old Frenchwoman, who at first refused to take her in.
‘You’d better drive her to the hospital,’ said this person, blocking the doorway. ‘She owes me two weeks’ rent already, and I can’t take care of her.’
The sight of Sutherland’s purse, however, worked wonders; and with many protestations of sympathy the hag suffered the girl to be carried to a room upstairs. The fainting fit had by this time passed away, to be followed by an attack of hysterical weeping and coughing. Sutherland shuddered, for as she coughed, and spat he saw on her lips a thin tinge of crimson blood.
He had her well cared for that night, and the next day he called with a physician, and found her in bed, wild and ghastly, as if she had not got long to live.
‘Ah! monsieur, forgive me!’ she cried, with a sad smile, reaching out her wasted hand. ‘I was méchante last night, but to see that man made me mad. I think I should have killed him had I been able. I was good and gentille when he first knew me, and he coaxed me away from my friends and took me to that evil place where you found me. But for him I might have been a good woman—you comprehend.’
‘Do not speak of it now. This gentleman is a doctor, I have brought him to see you.’
‘All, monsieur, how good you are!’ sobbed the girl, with a look of ineffable gratitude; and she raised his hand to her feverish lips and kissed it.
Edgar Sutherland was not the man to do any good deed by halves. Thanks to his generosity, Adèle Lambert was removed to a better lodging, and comfortably nursed; the doctor’s opinion being that the disease, though certainly mortal, would progress slowly, and that much might be done to alleviate her distressing condition. Not content with assisting her with money, the young man visited her almost daily, and did his best to lighten her miserable lot; talked to her cheerfully, read to her; and without obtruding any moral or religious sentiment, contrived to turn her bewildered and despairing thoughts in the direction of some heavenly compassion.
In the course of these kindly visits he learned the whole story of the unfortunate girl’s connection with the French adventurer, whom he had again recognised. That story cannot be told here; it would be too shocking for a society that hushes up revolting truths, and bases its moral security on the existence of an evil which philosophers contemplate with tranquillity, and men of the world with pleasant cynicism. Not even in the pages of a fiction with a purpose can an English writer print the record of what is at the best an accursed human sacrifice, a trade to which the slave trade was venial; a social abomination which destroys the body and too often obliterates the germinating soul.