"Sorrow, wrong, and trouble," said the Chemist, with a painful
effort at some more distinct remembrance, "at least haunt this
place darkly. He can do no harm, who brings forgetfulness of such
things here!"

With these words, he pushed the yielding door, and went in.

There was a woman sitting on the stairs, either asleep or forlorn,
whose head was bent down on her hands and knees. As it was not
easy to pass without treading on her, and as she was perfectly
regardless of his near approach, he stopped, and touched her on the
shoulder. Looking up, she showed him quite a young face, but one
whose bloom and promise were all swept away, as if the haggard
winter should unnaturally kill the spring.

With little or no show of concern on his account, she moved nearer
to the wall to leave him a wider passage.

"What are you?" said Redlaw, pausing, with his hand upon the broken
stair-rail.

"What do you think I am?" she answered, showing him her face again.

He looked upon the ruined Temple of God, so lately made, so soon
disfigured; and something, which was not compassion--for the
springs in which a true compassion for such miseries has its rise,
were dried up in his breast--but which was nearer to it, for the
moment, than any feeling that had lately struggled into the
darkening, but not yet wholly darkened, night of his mind--mingled
a touch of softness with his next words.