But she was frightened. She had come to the asylum late at night and been provided emergency refuge. Tomorrow the admissions committee would consider her case. She could not sleep for worrying about it. If the horror of leaving was any worse than the horror of staying, she did not know.

In the morning the Protestant chaplain came to her and said some words of comfort and blessed her, though Alice was uncertain what his blessing meant for he was not a priest, he had no rosary, no Hail Marys, nothing. He was unarmed.

She waited all day. She had prepared a story of a husband who had deserted her, the circumstances of the baby’s birth. She had no papers to prove her story, but did any of these women? They would discover she was not the child’s mother, this was her great fear—was it possible a doctor would examine her? She thought of strange hands touching her. She did not know if a crime had been committed. She had taken her sister’s baby.

Late in the afternoon two police constables came into the asylum. A man had come into the place and broken the jaw of one of the women, his wife, and in another ward a woman had smothered her newborn and been dragged out screaming and cursing, but these two constables just arrived looked straight at Alice. She had not been summoned yet to address the committee and when, now, a young man called out her name, instead of answering his summons she took up the baby and fled out of the door and no one came after her.

Outside the city was heading into evening, the streets surrounding the asylum already dark with occasional pools of light. But gas lighting frightened Alice now and she avoided it. She went from place to place, drifting as one did drift when one’s destination was unknown, and the faces she sometimes saw were not friendly. She thought after a time that she must come up with some plan. She thought she could perhaps go to Mrs Flynn, who had helped her and had been her friend, after a fashion; who at least believed in a sort of justice. But she did not know Mrs Flynn’s house and she wondered if she would go there even if she did know it. She thought about returning to the Dunlevys and prostrating herself at their door. But she did not turn in a northerly direction. Her body took her away from such places as the Dunlevys inhabited. She thought of how Milli had hidden her face in the shadows, ashamed of her downfall. Alice had not done the wicked thing Mrs Dunlevy had accused her of and she did not know why she might be accused of such a thing, but she had done other things. She had stolen the baby.