In the middle of their conversation she sank down on the floor, and Hilary was driven to restore her with biscuits and liqueur, which in his haste he took for brandy.

It seemed she had not eaten since her breakfast the day before, which had consisted of a cup of tea.

In answer to his remonstrance, she made this matter-of-fact remark: "If you haven't money, you can't buy things....

There's no one I can ask up here; I'm a stranger." "Then you haven't been getting work ?" "No," the little model answered sullenly; "I don't want to sit as most of them want me to till I'm obliged." The blood rushed up in her face with startling vividness, then left it white again.
'Ah!' thought Hilary, 'she has had experience already.' Both he and his wife were accessible to cases of distress, but the nature of their charity was different.

Hilary was constitutionally unable to refuse his aid to anything that held out a hand for it.