nable to
get rid of her.

"Isn't it a cruel thing when you come to think of it, that there should
be born into the world poor creatures--children, dogs, cats, horses--who
want badly to love and be loved, and yet whom no one can quite put up
with, much less feel affection for!

"Well, what happened to her is what will always happen to such as those,
one way or another, in a world where the callous abound; for, however
unlovable a woman or girl, she has her use to a man, just as a dog or a
horse has to a master who cares nothing for it.

"Soon after I bought those blackberries I went out to France on military
duty. I got my leave a year later, and went home. It was late September,
very lovely weather, and I took a real holiday walking or lying about up
on the Downs, and only coming down at sunset. On one of those days when
you really enter heaven, so pure are the lines of the hills, so cool the
blue, the green, the chalk-white colouring under the smile of the
afternoon sun--I was returning down that same lane, when I came on
Em'leen sitting in a gap of the bank, with her dishevelled hat beside
her, and her chin sunk on her hands. My appearance seemed to drag her
out of a heavy dream--her eyes awoke, became startled, rolled furtively;
she scrambled up, dropped her little, old school curtsey, then all
confused, faced the bank as if she were going to climb it. She was
taller, her dress longer, her hair gathered up, and it was very clear
what was soon going to happen to her. I walked on in a rage. At her
age--barely sixteen even yet! I am a doctor, and accustomed to most
things, but this particular crime against children of that helpless sort
does make my blood boil. Nothing, not even passion to excuse it--who
could feel passion for that poor child?--nothing but the cold, clumsy
lust of some young ruffian. Yes, I walked on in a rage, and went
straight to her mother's cottage. That wretched woman was incapable of
moral indignation, or else the adventures of her elder daughter had
exhausted her powers of expression. 'Yes,' she admitted, 'Em'leen had
got herself into trouble too, but she would not tell, she wouldn't say
nothin' against nobody. It was a bad business, surely, an' now there
would be three o' them, an' Alliner was properly upset, that he was!'
That was all there was to be had out of _her_. One felt that she knew or
suspected more, but her fingers had been so burned over the elder girl
that anything to her was bet