She made no further objection, and he turned with her, and they came presently to the end of the foot-bridge. It was a suspension bridge, narrow and unstable, swung across the gorge above the Malleson mills to accommodate employees of that concern. The wire cables that supported it hung so low that at the center they were scarcely knee-high above the floor, and that was covered with ice. It rocked and swayed with them as they walked upon it. Before they were half-way across Mary Bradley’s foot slipped. She sank to her knee and would have fallen over the side of the bridge had not the minister caught her, flung his arm around her waist and helped her to her feet.
“You’re not hurt?” he asked.
“No—except—my ankle.”
She was trembling with fright, and, when she tried to move on, the weakness of her injured foot made the attempt too hazardous and she hesitated. Two-thirds of the icy bridge had yet to be crossed.
“Shall we go back?” he asked.
“No,” she replied, “we will go on.”
The minister’s arm was still about her waist. It was a wise precaution. If it had not been there she would surely have plunged to the bottom of the gorge before the remainder of the crossing could have been accomplished. She wondered afterward why, with that first taste of an earthly heaven sweet upon her soul’s lips, she had not, herself, sought life’s end. At the farther end of the bridge he released her, and they turned and looked back over the perilous way they had come. Across the stream, in a circle of light thrown into the street by a swinging arc lamp, stood an automobile. A woman, sitting alone in the tonneau, swathed in furs, was looking over at them. They had not heard the car, they had not until that moment seen it, it was too far away now for its occupant to be identified. But Mary Bradley knew, nevertheless, who had seen them.
“It was a dangerous crossing,” said the rector as they turned up the hill, and the car across the gorge moved on.
“It was a rapturous crossing,” said Mary Bradley in her heart as, clinging to her companion’s arm, she limped weakly toward her home. But, if she had been reticent before the accident, she was silent now. The power of speech seemed almost to have left her. The minister respected her mood and did not question her. Doubtless pain or weariness or embarrassment had its effect upon her, and he did not choose to be intrusive. He left her at her door, and heard the querulous voice of the old woman of the house in impatient questioning as he turned away.
Mary Bradley gave brief greeting to her mother as she entered, but she went hurriedly and sat by the window in the darkened living-room. She watched the stalwart figure of the rector of Christ Church until it was lost in the shadows of the dimly-lighted street. She pressed her face against the pane and peered into the darkness after the last vestige of an outline or a motion had been swallowed up.