n a life as real and more true; a
life that is humble and yet not low; a life in which men may be men, and
the rude people of the soil need study the face of no master save nature
alone?

A SON OF HAGAR.

_BOOK I._

RETRO ME, SATHANA!

PROLOGUE.

IN THE YEAR 1845.

It was a chill December morning. The atmosphere was dense with fog in
the dusky chamber of a London police court; the lights were bleared and
the voices drowsed. A woman carrying a child in her arms had been half
dragged, half pushed into the dock. She was young; beneath her
disheveled hair her face showed almost girlish. Her features were
pinched with pain; her eyes had at one moment a serene look, and at the
next moment a look of defiance. Her dress had been rich; it was now torn
and damp, and clung in dank folds to her limbs. The child she carried
appeared to be four months old. She held it convulsively at her breast,
and when it gave forth a feeble cry she rocked it mechanically.

"Your worship, I picked this person out of the river at ha'past one
o'clock this morning," said a constable. "She had throwed herself off
the steps of Blackfriars Bridge."

"Had she the child with her?" asked the bench.

"Yes, your worship; and when I brought her to land I couldn't get the
little one out of her arms nohow--she clung that tight to it. The
mother, she was insensible; but the child opened its eyes and cried."

"Have you not learned her name?"

"No, sir; she won't give us no answer when we ask her that."

"I am informed," said the clerk, "that against all inquiries touching
her name and circumstances she keeps a rigid silence. The doctor is of
opinion, your worship, that the woman is not entirely responsible."

"Her appearance in court might certainly justify that conclusion," said
the magistrate.

The young woman had gazed vacantly about her with an air of
indifference. She seemed scarcely to realize that through the yellow
vagueness the eyes of a hundred persons were centered on her haggard
face.

"Anybody here who knows her?" asked the bench.

"Yes, your worship; I found out the old woman alonger she lodged."

"Let us hear the old person."

A woman in middle life--a little, confused, aimless, uncomfortable
body--stepped into the box. She answered to the name of Drayton. Her
husband was a hotel porter. She had a house in Pimlico. A month ago one
of her rooms on the first floor back had been to let. She put a card in
her w