I think I went a little mad just then. I felt that London ought to be burned, that fire and brimstone should rain down on a city in which a decent woman could not find a bed. I could not go back to Mare Street, Hackney, it wasn’t fair to impose myself upon the Salvation Army as a destitute when I had money in my pocket. Besides, it seemed incredible that such a state of things could be. I returned doggedly to Bow Street and was told of a lodging house at the bottom of Craven Street leading to the Embankment.

There was no such place. The lodging house resolved itself into one-of the many private hotels whose price would have been beyond my means, and from whose doors my dilapidated appearance would have barred me.

The Church Army I could not try again and the Christian Herald Mission, full the previous night, would obviously still be crowded.