Left to fight the world alone, with the millstone of her shame around her neck, she had sunk ever lower and lower (оставленная бороться с миром в одиночестве, с ярмом позора на шее = неся ярмо позора, она опускалась все ниже и ниже; to sink; millstone — «мельничный камень» — жернов; бремя, гнет, груз). For a while she had kept both herself and the child on the twelve shillings a week (некоторое время она содержала себя и ребенка на двенадцать шиллингов в неделю) that twelve hours' drudgery a day procured her (которые давала ей тяжелая работа по двенадцать часов в день; to procure — доставать; добывать; обеспечивать), paying six shillings out of it for the child, and keeping her own body and soul together on the remainder (платя шесть шиллингов за ребенка и удерживая душу в теле на остальное; to keep body and soul together — поддерживать существование, сводить концы с концами).

coroner ['krn] deceived [d'si:vd] tragedy ['traed]

Fortunately for us — we having no desire to be kept hanging about coroners' courts — some men on the bank had seen the body too, and now took charge of it from us.

We found out the woman's story afterwards. Of course it was the old, old vulgar tragedy. She had loved and been deceived — or had deceived herself. Anyhow, she had sinned — some of us do now and then — and her family and friends, naturally shocked and indignant, had closed their doors against her.

Left to fight the world alone, with the millstone of her shame around her neck, she had sunk ever lower and lower. For a while she had kept both herself and the child on the twelve shillings a week that twelve hours' drudgery a day procured her, paying six shillings out of it for the child, and keeping her own body and soul together on the remainder.