"I will send you to some of the city missionaries, or I will go with you to the Penitents' Retreat. I should like to help you. I—"
He would have exhorted her to reform as kindly as he knew how; he felt uncomfortable at letting her go so; he remembered just then who washed the feet of his Master with her tears. But she would not listen. She turned from him, and out into the storm, some cry on her lips,—it might have been:—
"There ain't nobody to help me. I was going to be better!"
She sank down on the snow outside, exhausted by the racking cough which the air had again brought on.
The sexton found her there in the shadow, when he locked the church doors.
"Meg! you here? What ails you?"
"Dying, I suppose!"
The sight of her touched the man, she lying there alone in the snow; he lingered, hesitated, thought of his own warm home, looked at her again. If a friendly hand should save the creature,—he had heard of such things. Well? But how could he take her into his respectable home? What would people say?—the sexton of the Temple! He had a little wife there too, pure as the snow upon the ground to-night. Could he bring them under the same roof?
"Meg!" he said, speaking in his nervous way, though kindly, "you will die here. I'll call the police and let them take you where it's warmer."
But she crawled to her feet again.