unforeseen moral support. The miserable wretch! . . . "

* * * * *

"--You understand," Marlow interrupted the current of his narrative,
"that in order to be consecutive in my relation of this affair I am
telling you at once the details which I heard from Mrs. Fyne later in the
day, as well as what little Fyne imparted to me with his usual solemnity
during that morning call. As you may easily guess the Fynes, in their
apartments, had read the news at the same time, and, as a matter of fact,
in the same august and highly moral newspaper, as the governess in the
luxurious mansion a few doors down on the opposite side of the street.
But they read them with different feelings. They were thunderstruck.
Fyne had to explain the full purport of the intelligence to Mrs. Fyne
whose first cry was that of relief. Then that poor child would be safe
from these designing, horrid people. Mrs. Fyne did not know what it
might mean to be suddenly reduced from riches to absolute penury. Fyne
with his masculine imagination was less inclined to rejoice extravagantly
at the girl's escape from the moral dangers which had been menacing her
defenceless existence. It was a confoundedly big price to pay. What an
unfortunate little thing she was! "We might be able to do something to
comfort that poor child at any rate for the time she is here," said Mrs.
Fyne. She felt under a sort of moral obligation not to be indifferent.
But no comfort for anyone could be got by rushing out into the street at
this early hour; and so, following the advice of Fyne not to act hastily,
they both sat down at the window and stared feelingly at the great house,
awful to their eyes in its stolid, prosperous, expensive respectability
with ruin absolutely standing at the door.

By that time, or very soon after, all Brighton had the information and