Edith had dropped out of society, and did not mean to go back.

She had no heart for anything outside of her home, except the Christian work to which she had laid her hands.
The restless, watchful, suspicious manner exhibited for a long time by Mrs.Dinneford, and particularly noticed by Edith, gradually wore off.
She grew externally more like her old self, but with something new in the expression of her face when in repose, that gave a chill to the heart of Edith whenever she saw its mysterious record, that seemed in her eyes only an imperfect effort to conceal some guilty secret.
Thus the mother and daughter, though in daily personal contact, stood far apart--were internally as distant from each other as the antipodes.
As for Mr.Dinneford, what he had seen and heard on his first visit to Briar street had aroused him to a new and deeper sense of his duty as a citizen.

Against all the reluctance and protests of his natural feelings, he had compelled himself to stand face to face with the appalling degradation and crime that festered and rioted in that almost Heaven-deserted region.

He had heard and read much about its evil condition; but when, under the protection of a policeman, he went from house to house, from den to den, through cellar and garret and hovel, comfortless and filthy as dog-kennels and pig-styes, and saw the sick and suffering, the utterly vile and debauched, starving babes and children with faces marred by crime, and the legion of harpies who were among them as birds of prey, he went back to his home sick at heart, and with a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness out of which he found it almost impossible to rise.
We cannot stain our pages with a description of what he saw.

It is so vile and terrible, alas, so horrible, that few would credit it.