THE GENERAL'S FAMILY.
NOT always remarkable for arriving at just conclusions, Lady Loring had
drawn the right inference this time. Stella had stopped the first cab
that passed her, and had directed the driver to Camp's Hill, Islington.
The aspect of the miserable little street, closed at one end, and
swarming with dirty children quarreling over their play, daunted her for
the moment. Even the cabman, drawing up at the entrance to the street,
expressed his opinion that it was a queer sort of place for a young lady
to venture into alone. Stella thought of Romayne. Her firm persuasion
that she was helping him to perform an act of mercy, which was (to
his mind) an act of atonement as well, roused her courage. She boldly
approached the open door of No. 10, and knocked on it with her parasol.
The tangled gray hair and grimy face of a hideous old woman showed
themselves slowly at the end of the passage, rising from the
strong-smelling obscurity of the kitchen regions. "What do you want?"
said the half-seen witch of the London slums. "Does Madame Marillac live
here?" Stella asked.
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