Her sweet voice was steady once more; her eyes rested softly on Horace as she went on.
"What was it possible for a friendless girl in my position to do, when the full knowledge of the outrage had been revealed to me?
"If I had possessed near and dear relatives to protect and advise me, the wretches into whose hands I had fallen might have felt the penalty of the law.

I knew no more of the formalities which set the law in motion than a child.

But I had another alternative (you will say).
Charitable societies would have received me and helped me, if I had stated my case to them.

I knew no more of the charitable societies than I knew of the law.

At least, then, I might have gone back to the honest people among whom I had lived?
When I received my freedom, after the interval of some days, I was ashamed to go back to the honest people.
Helplessly and hopelessly, without sin or choice of mine, I drifted, as thousands of other women have drifted, into the life which set a mark on me for the rest of my days.
"Are you surprised at the ignorance which this confession reveals?
"You, who have your solicitors to inform you of legal remedies and your newspapers, circulars, and active friends to sound the praises of charitable institutions continually in your ears--you, who possess these advantages, have no idea of the outer world of ignorance in which your lost fellow-creatures live.