It was a changed London to which Herminia returned. She was
homeless, penniless, friendless. Above all she was declassee.
The world that had known her now knew her no more. Women who had
smothered her with their Judas kisses passed her by in their
victorias with a stony stare. Even men pretended to be looking the
other way, or crossed the street to avoid the necessity for
recognizing her. "So awkward to be mixed up with such a scandal!"
She hardly knew as yet herself how much her world was changed
indeed; for had she not come back to it, the mother of an
illegitimate daughter? But she began to suspect it the very first
day when she arrived at Charing Cross, clad in a plain black dress,
with her baby at her bosom. Her first task was to find rooms; her
next to find a livelihood. Even the first involved no small
relapse from the purity of her principles. After long hours of
vain hunting, she found at last she could only get lodgings for
herself and Alan's child by telling a virtual lie, against which
her soul revolted. She was forced to describe herself as Mrs.
Barton; she must allow her landlady to suppose she was really a
widow. Woe unto you, scribes and hypocrites! in all Christian
London MISS Barton and her baby could never have found a
"respectable" room in which to lay their heads. So she yielded to
the inevitable, and took two tiny attics in a small street off the
Edgware Road at a moderate rental. To live alone in a cottage as
of yore would have been impossible now she had a baby of her own to
tend, besides earning her livelihood; she fell back regretfully on
the lesser evil of lodgings.