"Oh! I like sad stories," said Adela.

"Well, there isn't much of romance in it either, but I will cut it
short now the gentlemen are come. I knew the lady. She had been
married some years. And report said her husband was not overkind to
her. All at once she disappeared, and her husband thought the worst of
her. Knowing her as well as I did, I did not believe a word of it. Yet
it was strange that she had left her baby, her only child, of a few
months, as well as her husband. I went to see her mother directly I
heard of it, and together we went to the police; and such a search as
we had! We traced her to a wretched lodging, where she had been for
two nights, but they did not know what had become of her. In fact,
they had turned her out because she had no money. Some information
that we had, made us go to a house near Hyde Park. We rang the
bell. Who should open the door, in a neat cap and print-gown, but the
poor lady herself! She fainted when she saw her mother. And then the
whole story came out. Her husband was stingy, and only allowed her
very small sum for housekeeping; and perhaps she was not a very good
manager, for good management is a gift, and everybody has not got
it. So she found that she could not clear off the butcher's bills on
the sum allowed her; and she had let the debt gather and gather, till
the thought of it, I believe, actually drove her out of her mind for
the time. She dared not tell her husband; but she knew it must come
out some day, and so at last, quite frantic with the thought of it,
she ran away, and left her baby behind her."

"And what became of her?" asked Adela.

"Her husband would never hear a word in her favour. He laughed at her