During the five minutes that elapsed between Christina’s exit and the return of the other two girls, Charity and Cordelia, Lydia had time enough to reflect on the previous six hours of her life, which loomed in her mind huge and forbidding, in some ways totally eclipsing, for her, the last twenty-five years of her happy existence. She thought of her family, who lived North, in Dutchess County, and she thought of her father, the latest in a long line of English wine merchants. She thought of Levi, of course, who was perhaps lost to her forever—she thought of her married life, of her future, gone, lost in an instant. She thought of their home, which would soon be sold to the first buyer. She thought of Lucy and Charles Och, who would rise in an hour and open her two letters, and dreaded the explanation she would have to give them: she now looked at her husband’s little ploy and found it wanting, not only in decency but in design. And all that plotting for what! So that he could escape notice for a few days, perhaps, or maybe a year, before a cure could be found.

Most of all she felt ashamed, ashamed—but then the door creaked open, and she watched as the two girls, Charity and Cordelia, peered around the side with cartoonish expressions on their faces. They gave each other quick looks, and then rushed in, “What’s happened! What’s this about? Where is she?! Christina!” Lydia, undaunted, glared her eyes at them—she was still bound and gagged, and waited, waited. “Un-gag her,” said Charity to the other. Lydia waited, and then stood up and walked toward the door without a word. “Hello, ma’am!” one of the girls called her. 
Lydia spun around, “What! What can you possibly want from me!”
“Ma’am, here, please—ma’am, take my twenty dollars. Alonzo wishes a small atonement for your trouble.” Charity spoke.
“Pray, who is he?”
 “Why, he lives here, ma’am. He wants nothing to do with those street women, those tramps, your Christinas, please you. He owns this establishment and he proprietates it, ma'am, and he offers you twenty dollars for your trouble, that you must take it and leave peacefully. Here’s your clothes, and here’s your trinkets, ma’am." She paused. "I have one question only, if you please, ma'am,—what was –”
 “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop there." Lydia took command. "In any event, I will not report you, Alonzo, or the rest of your mangy, rotten establishment to the Law. I say that I will not report you—but (she reconsidered)--but on one condition: you must tell me where Christina has gone. She has stolen something valuable from me—more valuable than these paltry and replaceable clothes and knickknacks you’ve returned to me—and I must find her within the hour. Tell me where she resides.”
 “Oh, ma’am, I'm sure I don’t know,” said Charity, looking over at the silent Cordelia, and then down at the bare and moldy planks in the floorboards. “I don’t know, nor may I guess, ma’am.” The girl paused, then lurched forward and flung herself at Lydia’s dress. “Oh, ma’am, she paid me for this. She put us both up, Cordelia and I, and we have nothing. Please say nothing to Alonzo, please say nothing. Think of your family, ma’am, then think of mine, overseas, all alone. Say nothing, please, say nothing, I beg.” Lydia’s heart melted instantly, and felt a terrible pity and shame come over her. 
“No, no, of course,” she said. “No, I’ll say nothing. Just, please, tell me where the other woman has gone to. Where can I find her? I shall tell no one, I swear to you.” And she looked over at Cordelia, off in the corner of the room, who was bending over and collecting Lydia’s articles.
“She rambles, ma’am. She moves about, and Alonzo will verify—”
“I want nothing to do with Alonzo, and I don’t want his money, but if you can tell me where she has lodged last, I will leave you at once.”
Cordelia spoke up. “Chatham Square was where I saw her last, in the Bowery. Go there, and you might have luck. Goodbye.”
“I’ll go there then. Where is the nearest omnibus?”
“Three blocks down.” Lydia wrenched herself free of Charity’s grip, grabbed her possessions, pulled on her clothes, draped herself in an overcoat and hood, and left the building without a word. She could waste no more time.

As she left the brothel and rushed down the street, dawn was spreading faintly behind her, toward the ferry. Her heart ached inwardly, as she thought “If, if, if we could have passed over the last hour, if I hadn’t written those two letters, and cut off all our connections with the Ochs and the rest of the city (and my family! Oh, what will they think?)—and if, oh, if Levi were still here, and hadn’t caught this disease, if he hadn’t shrunk—oh, who up there is testing me!” At the rim of the west, the sky was still bright with meteors—the storm would be visible throughout the daytime hours as well, shimmering from above the rings of the sun, down below the edge of the horizon. Nothing answered her up there – not even that yellowy-white globe in the sky, everlastingly pulsing out its gaseous flames of dull-gold, drowning not only the night but brightness itself – not even the sun seemed to mean anything. The sun, and every other star up there, is a cruel and a pitiless creature, even in cold November.

But at least the night was ending, even if that meant Charles Och would join her in her chase for Levi. She had the jump on Charles, and simply must avoid all mention or thought of him. She must not run into him in the street, and she must not run into any of her friends, who would doubtless observe and make some comment about her haggard, sleepless face, her unkempt hair, and the ragged and torn linen clothes under her woolen overcoat. What a night!

The usual urban to-do was starting up again, as the warm purple and orange glow in the east began to warm the coast of America, and the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Lydia, tired as she was, found an omnibus and stepped off at the Bowery. She hurried down to Chatham Square, not knowing precisely where to go, or what to expect, or what she should hope to find. It was “a messy district” here, as well, and she found many of the same establishments she found down at the Hook, where she was mugged and lost Levi. But here the places were younger, just having begun to sprout up within the last two or three years. Above the theaters, across from the restaurants and saloons, under the rickety wooden houses, down the alleyways—she knew, with more certainty, now that it was daylight, that here was the real New York Underworld. Despair crept over her, but she swatted it away and pushed onward. She would find Levi, and he would be alive. She would arrest the harlot, that demoness – the woman who seemed everything she was not – and bring her to justice (not for stealing her husband, which no one would believe without physical evidence, but for stealing her honor, and her property). “One must go on—I must not give up hope.” And in her heart, as the morning began to grow bright, not all hope was lost, or could be lost.

She entered the nearest cabaret theater, ascended the stairs, and asked to speak with the manager. To her surprise, she was not turned away. A man with a lively eye and a jaunty step walked in, and raised her hand for a kiss. She pulled away, and asked his name.

“Fields,” he said. “Name’s Henry Fields.”  
“Mr. Fields,” said Lydia, “I’m looking for a woman who has stolen from me, a woman I’ve been told has recently procured a room nearby. She works as a dancer, and I am seeking information.”
 “A girl, huh? Find a constable. Find a watchman.” He was ready to leave. [At the time, New York had no police force.]
 “This is a private matter, Mr. Fields, and I wish that it be kept private, for the present.”
“Ah. What’s the dame go by. What’s her name.”

“Christina, I believe. Do you know any?”
 “Do I know any?" His eye sparkled. "I should think so. I should think I know one. Why, I know one—and she doesn’t work here, believe me. But I know of one. Go up the street two blocks and find Mose and Lize’s saloon. Ask for a Miss Jane Abbott. She stayed there last week and for all I know she's staying there still, Ms. –I didn’t get your last name.”
“Lydia.”
“Ms. Lydia, I advise—I strongly advise you to take someone with you, if you don’t want no unpleasantness. Allow me to escort you, a little ways.”
“Mr. Fields, I am in a hurry, and I’m sorry but I must decline your offer, well-meaning and good-natured as it very well may be. I’m grateful to you for your information.” She set down Charity’s twenty, and abruptly left the room.
“My pleasure, Ms. Lydia, my pleasure. But wait—my card. I must write you a letter.”
 Lydia doubted that Fields’ signature could be of much use to her, but waited the five seconds it took him to write it. She thanked him and turned left at the entrance, pacing herself, but pressing herself forward into the clamor and energy of the street. She would find Christina. She would get her justice, even in the face of absurdity—of whatever happened to her, whatever unjust calamities had been forced upon her after the last seven hours.