See,
there's the house of God under its spider's web of scaffolding, and
here's the Broad Sanctuary--broad enough in all conscience! Look!"

A crowd of girls and men were trooping out of a place of entertainment
opposite, and there were screams and curses. "Look at 'im!" cried a
woman's voice. "There 'e is, the swine! And 'e was the ruin of me; and
now 'e's 'listed for a soldier and going off with another woman!"

"You're bleedin' drunk, that's what you are!" said a man's voice, "and if
you down't take kear I'll send ye 'ome on a dawer!"

"Strike me, will ye, ye dog? Do it! I dare you!"

"She ain't worth it, soldier--come along," said another female voice,
whereupon the first broke into a hurricane of oaths; and a little
clergyman going by at the moment--it was the Rev. J. Golightly--said:
"Dear, dear! Are there no policemen about?" and so passed on, with his
tall wife tucked under his arm.

John Storm pressed through the crowd and came between the two who were
quarrelling. By the light of the lamp he could see them. The man was
Charlie Wilkes, in the uniform of a soldier; the woman, with the paint
running on her face, her fringe disordered, and her back hair torn down,
was Aggie Jones.

"We down't want no religion 'ere," said Charlie, sneering.

"You'll get some, though, if you're not off quick!" said John. The man
looked round for the dog and a moment afterward he had disappeared.

Glory came up behind. "O Aggie, woman, is it you?" she said, and then the
girl began to cry in a drunken sob.

"Girls is cruel put upon, mum," said one of the women; and another cried,
"Nix, the slops!" and a policeman came pushing his way and saying: "Now,
then, move on! We ain't going to stand 'ere all night."

"Call a cab, officer," said John.

"Yes sir--certainly, Father. Four-wheel-er!"

"Where do you live, Aggie?" said Glory; but the girl, now sobbing drunk,
was too far gone to follow her.

"She lives in Brown's Square, sir," said the woman who had spoken before,
and when the cab came up she was asked to get in with the other three.

It was a tenement house, fronting to one facade of St. Jude's, and
Aggie's room was on the second story. She was helpless, and John carried
her up the stairs. The place was in hideous disorder, with clothing lying
about on chairs, underclothing scattered on the floor, the fire out, many
cigarette ends in the fender, a candle stuck in a beer bottle, and a
bunch of withered roses on the tabl