attention was recalled to passing events by a sad little voice,
putting a strange little question, close at my side.

"If you please, sir, do you know where I can find a chemist's
shop open at this time of night?"

I looked round, and discovered a poorly clad little boy, with a
basket over his arm, and a morsel of paper in his hand.

"The chemists' shops are all shut," I said. "If you want any
medicine, you must ring the night-bell."

"I dursn't do it, sir," replied the small stranger. "I am such a
little boy, I'm afraid of their beating me if I ring them up out
of their beds, without somebody to speak for me."

The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with such
a forlorn experience of being beaten for trifling offenses in his
face, that it was impossible to resist the impulse to help him.

"Is it a serious case of illness?" I asked.

"I don't know, sir."

"Have you got a doctor's prescription?"

He held out his morsel of paper.

"I have got this," he said.

I took the paper from him, and looked at it.

It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I looked
first at the doctor's signature; it was the name of a perfectly
obscure person in the profession. Below it was written the name
of the patient for whom the medicine had been prescribed. I
started as I read it. The name was "Mrs. Brand."

The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound went, at
any rate) was the English equivalent of Van Brandt.

"Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?" I asked.

" Oh yes, sir! She lodges with mother--and she owes for rent. I
have done everything she told me, except getting the physic. I've
pawned her ring, and I've bought the bread and butter and eggs,
and I've taken care of the change. Mother looks to the change for
her rent. It isn't my fault, sir, that I've lost myself. I am but
ten years old--and all the chemists' shops are shut up!"

Here my little friend's sense of his unmerited misfortunes
overpowered him, and he began to cry.

"Don't cry, my man!" I said; "I'll help you. Tell me something
more about the lady first. Is she alone?"

"She's got her little girl with her, sir."

My heart quickened its beat. The boy's answer reminded me of that
other little girl whom my mother had once seen.

"Is the lady's husband with her?" I asked next.

"No, sir--not now. He was with her; but he went away--and he
hasn't come back yet."

I put a last conclusive question.

"Is her husband an Englishman?" I inquired.

"Mother says he's a foreigner," the boy answered.

I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might have
noticed it!

Passing under the name of "Mrs. Brand"--poor, so poor that she
was obliged to pawn her ring--left, by a man who was a foreigner,
alone with her little girl--was I on the trace of her at that
moment? Was this lost child destined to be the innocent means of
leading me back to the woman I loved, in her direst need of
sympathy and help? The more I thought of it, the more strongly
the idea of returning with the boy to the house in which his
mother's lodger lived fastened itself on my mind. The clock
struck the quarter past eleven. If my anticipations ended in
misleading me, I had still three-quarters of an hour to spare
before the month reached its end.

"Where do you live?" I asked.

The boy mentioned a street, the name of which I then heard for
the first time. All he could say, when I asked for further
particulars, was that he lived close by the river--in which
direction, he was too confused and too frightened to be able to
tell me.

While we were still trying to understand each other, a cab passed
slowly at some little distance. I hailed the man, and mentioned
the name of the street to him. He knew it perfectly well. The
street was rather more than a mile away from us, in an easterly
direction. He undertook to drive me there and to bring me back


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