could not fail to be interested, were grouped about
that dramatic figure. He was struck, too, by a painful sense of
incongruity.

"If she had been in this other girl's niche," he said, "if she had lived
the life of this Anice----"

But he did not finish his sentence. Something, not many yards beyond
him, caught his eye--a figure seated upon the road-side near a collier's
cottage--evidently a pit girl in some trouble, for her head was bowed
upon her hands, and there was a dogged sort of misery expressed in her
very posture.

"A woman," he said aloud. "What woman, I wonder. This is not the time
for any woman to be sitting here alone."

He crossed the road at once, and going to the girl, touched her lightly
on the shoulder.

"My lass," he said good-naturedly, "what ails you?"

She raised her head slowly as if she were dizzy and bewildered. Her face
was disfigured by a bruise, and on one temple was a cut from which the
blood trickled down her cheek; but the moonlight showed him that it was
Joan. He removed his hand from her shoulder and drew back a pace.

"You have been hurt!" he exclaimed.

"Aye," she answered deliberately, "I've had a hurt--a bad un."

He did not ask her how she had been hurt. He knew as well as if she had
told him, that it had been done in one of her father's fits of drunken
passion. He had seen this sort of thing before during his sojourn in the
mining districts. But, shamefully repulsive as it had been to him, he
had never felt the degradation of it as fiercely as he did now.

"You are Joan Lowrie?" he said.

"Aye, I'm Joan Lowrie, if it 'll do yo' ony good to know."

"You must have something done to that cut upon your temple."

She put up her hand and wiped the blood away, as if impatient at his
persistence.

"It 'll do well enow as it is," she said.

"That is a mistake," he answered. "You are losing more blood than you
imagine. Will you let me help you?"

She stirred uneasily.

Derrick took no notice of the objection. He drew his handkerchief
from his pocket, and, after some little effort, managed to stanch the
bleeding, and having done so, bound the wound up. Perhaps something
in his sympathetic silence and the quiet consideration of his manner
touched Joan. Her face, upturned almost submissively, for the moment
seemed tremulous, and she set her lips together. She did not speak until
he had finished, and then she rose and stood before him immovable as
ever.

"Thank yo'," she