He cast it from him with the words—something he had taken from his pocket—a little spiked and scented parcel, so ridiculous and so tender. It had fulfilled its mission at last. That was “writ in water.” And the poor cherished heels, stuck with a sprig of withered geranium, went down to the sea—or, perhaps, into the maw of some sentimental pike that would swallow it all, as we mortals swallow any absurd love-story.
Now, if the action was inspired by a despairing man’s intuitive altruism on behalf of a despairing harlot, we may not call it bathos.
Suddenly the woman broke into a shrill laugh.
“Was it an unfruitful token? Better thou and I!” she cried. “And so thou still hold’st love inviolable?”
He answered with his eyes. She came quite close to him—looked up into his face.
“That is well. Come with me, then, now the madness is past.”
“With you!” he exclaimed scornfully. All his repulsion of her was returning before the reclaimed devil in her eyes.
“With me, murderess and courtesan. Oh! it is not for myself,” she said. “It is for another—whose confession to me an hour ago sent me to seek thee out—that I would carry thee.”
He stared, dumfounded, muttering “Another? what other?”
“One,” she said, “that hath pursued thee long months with bleeding feet and a broken heart. One, that I came upon to-day, lost and wandering in the cold streets, and that I, being no man, took home with me and comforted.”