Tempted he was not, but most wofully disturbed in mind he certainly was. Having destroyed the dubious address, he felt himself to have assumed in a measure a responsibility for this foolish girl's future, her immediate future at least. His mind traversed rapidly all the possible courses open to him. He must take her somewhere. Hotels and boarding-houses were alike impossible. He thought of Nora Costello; but he could not bring himself to ask her to share the narrow limits of her one room with this be-furbelowed young person, and then it would involve so many awkward explanations. There was only one person who would understand. By a process of exclusion, his thoughts were driven more and more insistently toward seeking aid from Winifred Anstice.
He felt to the full the delicacy and difficulty, not to say the absurdity, of his position, in seeking to place the woman who loved him under the protection of the woman he loved, but it was the only course which seemed even possible.
"Come," he said suddenly to Tilly, with an authority which the girl's will was powerless to resist. "Since you will not go home, you must be cared for here. I will take you to a friend of mine, and you must do as she tells you."
"And what if I won't go?" said the girl, with a feeble effort at self-assertion.
"Then I will leave you here. Only never hold me responsible for the ruin that lies before you clear as Hell."
The girl quailed before the energy of his words.
"Cab, sir?" called the driver of a hansom the lights of which had twinkled from a judicious distance for some time past.
Flint raised his finger in acquiescence, and the hansom rattled up to the curbstone. Flint handed Tilly Marsden into it with his habitual deference, gave a street and number to the driver, and, jumping in himself, slammed to the half doors with a clang which echoed along the silent street. The driver cracked his whip over the horse's head as if he were about to drive him at a desperate pace; but the animal, familiar with the noisy demonstration and recognizing it as intended for the encouragement of the passengers within the vehicle and not conveying any special warning to himself, set off at his customary jog-trot.
A man who had been standing in the shadow of a house moved out and stood a moment under the quivering nimbus of the electric light. His brow darkened as he looked after the retreating cab.