"
"Come then; I will show you the way out. This is no. 18, Addison square.
You need not come in the cellar-way next time."
"If I were you," said Christopher, stopping at the foot of the kitchen
stair, "I would leave the key in that cellar-door. The poor young woman
would be terrified to find they were prisoners."
She turned immediately and went back, he following, and replaced the
key.
"Now let us fasten up the door I came in by," said Christopher. "I have
got a screw in my pocket, and I never go without my tool-knife."
This was soon done, and he went.
What a strange night it had been for Hester--more like some unbelievable
romance! For the time she had forgotten her own troubles! Ah, if she had
been of one mind with lord Gartley, those poor creatures would be now
moaning in darkness by the dead body of their child, or out with it in
their arms in the streets, or parted asunder in the casual wards of some
workhouse! Certainly God could have sent them other help than hers, but
where would _she_ be then--a fellow-worker with his lordship, and
not with God--one who did it not to _him_! Woe for the wife whose
husband has no regard to her deepest desires, her highest
aspirations!--who loves her so that he would be the god of her idolatry,
not the friend and helper of her heart, soul, and mind! Many of Hester's
own thoughts were revealed to her that night by the side of the dead
Moxy.
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