“What if I drop?”
“Then I will carry you away. The sooner you drop the better.” Her resolution seemed to break.
“I 'ain't eaten a mouthful to-day,” she said.
“My poor girl! Promise me to wait till I come back. Here, put on my coat.”
She was past resisting more, and allowed him to button his coat about her.
But he was in great perplexity: where was he to get anything for her? And how was she to live till he brought it! It was terrible to think of! Alice with nothing to eat, and no refuge but a stone in the moonlight! This was what her religion had done for Alice!
“Miss Wylder's God!” he said to himself with contempt.
“He's well enough for the wind and the stars and the moonlight! but for human beings—for Alice—for creatures dying of hunger, what a mockery! If he were there, it would be a sickness to talk of him! Beauty is beauty, but for anything behind it—pooh!”
He stood a moment hesitating. Alice swayed on her seat, and would have fallen. He caught her—and in the act remembered a little cottage, a hut rather, down a lane a short way off. He took her in his arms and started for it.
She was dreadfully thin, but a strong man cannot walk very fast carrying a woman, however light she be, and she had half come to herself before he reached the cottage.