“‘This is strange,’ I thought, ‘that voice had a desperate meaning in it. I wonder if she really thinks of that; poor soul!—poor soul, she will surely come to grief. If she were not drifting out of my beat, I would follow her!’
“The moon was up, but clouded, and but few stars appeared; so it was mostly by the street-lamps that I kept her in sight, until she passed out of my beat. When I lost sight of her, she was making straight for the river, and hurried on as if urged forward by the fright my face had given her.
“The clock from a far-off steeple struck the hour.
“It was not many minutes before I was relieved, and free to follow the woman, which I did, though she had lost herself among the shadows. I then turned toward the river, and followed the young creature at a cautious distance, until she left the paved street and went into the enclosure of a private mansion, where shrubbery was thick and the grass so elastic that I could approach close to her unnoticed.
“She had heard the heavy rush of flowing waters coming up through the solemn night, and quickened her steps as if the voice of a friend had called to her from a great distance.
“‘Oh, it is there! it is there!’ she moaned, ‘my last—last friend—the only one that will take me in and hide me.’
“Now her footsteps beat swiftly on the turf as she sped onward, guided by the deep whispering of the waves. She was skirting the walls of a garden, over which roses and clustering masses of honeysuckles trailed out of bounds, filling the night air with fragrance, that for one moment evidently checked the girl in her progress; or she was stricken faint with a sudden recoil of conscience, perhaps.
‘They are blossoming now—now around my window, as they did then, just a year—only a year!’ I heard her say.
“The girl wrung her hands, looking wildly around, as if she sought for some human being to pity her; but nothing was near save the faint odor of flowers, that seemed to wither her like poison; and the far off drifts of the river, blended with the flow of a soft wind through innumerable leaves, and the stir of roses under their dew.
“The very fragrance and beauty of the night, while it seemed to lift her soul out of its dull apathy, stung it to desperation. She turned and fled from the garden wall, and I lost her among the great primeval trees, that made the place solitary as a hermitage. Without giving it a thought, I plunged into the shadows of the grove, beyond which the great river was flowing.