reached the pavement. The fact did not strike her. She was thinking for
a moment of the innocent young foreigner who had brought matters to a
crisis between her husband and herself. On the whole she was glad that
he was not in England--yet there would have been one friend.

And now her own case was really desperate; it was late at night; she was
famished and worn out in body and mind, nor could she see the slightest
prospect of a lodging for the night.

And that she would have had in the condemned cell, with food and warmth
and rest, and the blessed certainty of a speedy issue out of all her
afflictions.

It was a bitter irony, after all, this acquittal!

There was but one place for her now. She would perish there of cold and
horror; but she might buy something to eat, and take it with her; and at
least she could rest, and would be alone, in the empty house, the house
of misery and murder, that was yet the one shelter that she knew of in
all London.

She crept to the King's road, and returned with a few sandwiches,
walking better in her eagerness to break a fast which she had only felt
since excitement had given place to despair. But now it was making her
faint and ill. And she hurried, weary though she was.

But in the little street itself she stood aghast. A crowd filled it; the
crowd stood before the empty house of sorrow and of crime; and in a
moment Rachel saw the cause.

It was her own fault. She had left the light burning in the upper room,
the bedroom on the second floor.

Rachel joined the skirts of the crowd--drawn by an irresistible
fascination--and listened to what was being said. All eyes were upon the
lighted window of the bedroom--watching for herself, as she soon
discovered--and this made her doubly safe where she stood behind the
press.

"She's up there, I tell yer," said one.

"Not her! It's a ghost."

"Her 'usband's ghost, then."

"But vere's a chap 'ere wot sore 'er fice to fice in the next street;
an' followed 'er and 'eard the door go; an' w'en 'e come back wiv 'is
pals, vere was vat light."

"Let's 'ave 'er aht of it."

"Yuss, she ain't no right there."

"No; the condemned cell's the plice for 'er!"

"Give us a stone afore the copper comes!"

And Rachel saw the first stone flung, and heard the first glass break;
and within a very few minutes there was not a whole pane left in the
front of the house; but that was all the damage which Rachel herself saw
done.

A hand touch