me broken down, and when all was gone, I was turned into the street.  Yes, yes, yes, (she whispers,) they gave me to the streets; for twenty-four hours I have wandered without nourishment, or a place to lay my head.  I sought shelter in a dark court, and there laid down to die; and when my eyes were dim, and all before me seemed mysterious and dark with curious visions, a hand touched me, and I felt myself borne away.”  Here her voice chokes, she sinks back upon the pillow, and closes her eyes as her hands fall careless at her side.  “She breathes! she breathes yet!” says Tom, advancing his ear to the pale, quivering lips of the wretched woman.  Now he bathes her temples with the vinegar from a bottle in the hand of the host, who is just entered, and stands looking on, his countenance full of alarm.

“If she deys in my ’ouse, good sir, w’oat then?”

“You mean the expense?”

“Just so-it ’ll be nae trifle, ye kno’!” The host shakes his head, doubtingly.  Tom begs he will not be troubled about that, and gives another assurance from his purse that quite relieves the host’s apprehensions.  A low, heavy breathing, followed by a return of spasms, bespeaks the sinking condition of the sufferer.  The policeman returns, preceded by a physician-the only one to be got at, he says-in very dilapidated broadcloth, and whose breath is rather strong of gin.  “An’ whereabutes did ye pick the woman up,—­an, an, wha’s teu stond the bill?” he inquires, in a deep Scotch brogue, then ordering the little window opened, feels clumsily the almost pulseless hand.  Encouraged on the matter of his bill, he turns first to the host, then to Tom, and says, “the wuman’s nae much, for she’s amast dede wi’ exhaustion.”  And while he is ordering a nostrum he knows can do no good, the woman makes a violent struggle, opens her eyes, and seems casting a last glance round the dark room.  Now she sets them fixedly upon the ceiling, her lips pale, and her countenance becomes spectre-like-a low, gurgling sound is heard, the messenger of retribution is come-Madame Flamingo is dead!

CHAPTER XL.

In which the law is seen to Conflict with our cherished chivalry.

“What could the woman mean, when on taking leave of me she said, ‘you are far richer than me?’” questions Maria McArthur to herself, when, finding she is alone and homeless in the street, she opens the packet the woman Anna slipped so mysteriously into her hand, and finds it contains two twenty-dollar gold pieces.  And while evolving in her mind whether she shall appropriate them to the relief of her destitute condition, her conscience smites her.  It is the gold got of vice.  Her heart shares the impulse that prompted the act, but her pure spirit recoils from the acceptance of such charity.  “You are far richer than me!” knells in her ears,