Her sweet voice was steady once more; her eyes rested softly on Horace as she went on.
"What was it possible for a friendless girl in my position to do, when the full knowledge of the outrage had been revealed to me?
"If I had possessed near and dear relatives to protect and advise me, the wretches into whose hands I had fallen might have felt the penalty of the law.
I knew no more of the formalities which set the law in motion than a child.
But I had another alternative (you will say).
Charitable societies would have received me and helped me, if I had stated my case to them.
I knew no more of the charitable societies than I knew of the law.
At least, then, I might have gone back to the honest people among whom I had lived?
When I received my freedom, after the interval of some days, I was ashamed to go back to the honest people.
Helplessly and hopelessly, without sin or choice of mine, I drifted, as thousands of other women have drifted, into the life which set a mark on me for the rest of my days.
"Are you surprised at the ignorance which this confession reveals?
"You, who have your solicitors to inform you of legal remedies and your newspapers, circulars, and active friends to sound the praises of charitable institutions continually in your ears—you, who possess these advantages, have no idea of the outer world of ignorance in which your lost fellow-creatures live.
They know nothing (unless they are rogues accustomed to prey on society) of your benevolent schemes to help them.
The purpose of public charities, and the way to discover and apply to them, ought to be posted at the corner of every street.
What do we know of public dinners and eloquent sermons and neatly printed circulars?
Every now and then the ease of some forlorn creature (generally of a woman) who has committed suicide, within five minutes' walk, perhaps, of an institution which would have opened its doors to her, appears in the newspapers, shocks you dreadfully, and is then forgotten again.
Take as much pains to make charities and asylums known among the people without money as are taken to make a new play, a new journal, or a new medicine known among the people with money and you will save many a lost creature who is perishing now.
"You will forgive and understand me if I say no more of this period of my life.
Let me pass to the new incident in my career which brought me for the second time before the public notice in a court of law.
"Sad as my experience has been, it has not taught me to think ill of human nature.
I had found kind hearts to feel for me in my former troubles; and I had friends—faithful, self-denying, generous friends—among my sisters in adversity now.
One of these poor women (she has gone, I am glad to think, from the world that used her so hardly) especially attracted my sympathies.
She was the gentlest, the most unselfish creature I have ever met with.
We lived together like sisters.
More than once in the dark hours when the thought of self-destruction comes to a desperate woman, the image of my poor devoted friend, left to suffer alone, rose in my mind and restrained me.
You will hardly understand it, but even we had our happy days.
When she or I had a few shillings to spare, we used to offer one another little presents, and enjoy our simple pleasure in giving and receiving as keenly as if we had been the most reputable women living.
"One day I took my friend into a shop to buy her a ribbon—only a bow for her dress.
She was to choose it, and I was to pay for it, and it was to be the prettiest ribbon that money could buy.
"The shop was full; we had to wait a little before we could be served.
"Next to me, as I stood at the counter with my companion, was a gaudily-dressed woman, looking at some handkerchiefs.
The handkerchiefs were finely embroidered, but the smart lady was hard to please.
She tumbled them up disdainfully in a heap, and asked for other specimens from the stock in the shop.
The man, in clearing the handkerchiefs out of the way, suddenly missed one.
He was quite sure of it, from a peculiarity in the embroidery which made the handkerchief especially noticeable.
I was poorly dressed, and I was close to the handkerchiefs.
After one look at me he shouted to the superintendent:
'Shut the door!
There is a thief in the shop!'
"The door was closed; the lost handkerchief was vainly sought for on the counter and on the floor.
A robbery had been committed; and I was accused of being the thief.
"I will say nothing of what I felt—I will only tell you what happened.
"I was searched, and the handkerchief was discovered on me.
The woman who had stood next to me, on finding herself threatened with discovery, had no doubt contrived to slip the stolen handkerchief into my pocket.
Only an accomplished thief could have escaped detection in that way without my knowledge.
It was useless, in the face of the facts, to declare my innocence.
I had no character to appeal to.
My friend tried to speak for me; but what was she?
Only a lost woman like myself.
My landlady's evidence in favor of my honesty produced no effect; it was against her that she let lodgings to people in my position.