“Of course not, or she would not have attempted suicide,” said the doctor; “but shame at exposing the person is no evidence of purity in itself. It is a higher sense of purity that keeps men and women from courses that degrade the moral nature.” After a while the doctor asked if there were no better beds in the station than the one on which the girl lay—a miserable old mattress, stretched on a rickety iron bedstead. Being informed that there were not, except in the rooms of the officers, the doctor made up his mind suddenly, and sent one of the men for a hack. As he was wrapping another blanket around the girl, preparatory to her removal, she looked around wildly, and exclaimed, “Oh, why did you take me from the river?”
“My dear,” said the doctor, kindly, “I’m going to take you where you will find sympathy and love, if you are only a sensible girl.”
“Oh, I was dead. I know I was dead, and it was all over;” and she sobbed and moaned in a low tone that touched the tender heart of the doctor. He said: “Well, my dear child, just consider yourself resurrected into a new life. Shut the past all out. You have a good face, and a nice round head. I shall expect great things of you;” and he smoothed back her wet hair, in a gentle, fatherly fashion, that made her sobs break out anew.
Of course the doctor drove to the home of Clara and Susie. Where else could he take a poor, abandoned woman for womanly sympathy and help? Hearing the carriage drive up to the gate, and then the loud ring at the door, Clara was alarmed. Throwing on her dressing-gown and putting her bare feet in slippers, she ran down before the servant was out of bed. Her first thought was that something had happened to her father. She was quickly reassured when she opened the door. He had already dismissed the hackman, and stood on the porch with his burden in his arms.
“Papa, dear! What is it? But come in quickly, out of the cold. I was afraid something had happened to you.” The doctor laid the partially unconscious girl down, as he said, “It is a poor girl, dragged from the river to-night. The police-station is such a beastly place I couldn’t leave her there.”
“We must get her into bed at once,” said Clara, opening the blankets timidly to see the face. What bed? she was thinking. The one guest-room was too immaculate for such uses—“too cold, too,” she said aloud. “I think we must carry her to my bed. Is she—nice, papa?”
“She must, at least, be well washed outside,” said the doctor, with grim humor, amused at the feminine scruple of his daughter.
“Well, papa, we’ll put her right into my warm bed. Won’t that be best?”
“Yes, dear. The warmth is what she needs, and your bed must be warmed by a magnetism that should be good for a Magdalen.” Here the new servant, Ellen, came in. Mary, Mrs. Buzzell’s old servant, had taken a vacation, and was visiting her friends in a distant State. Ellen stared at the muffled figure, but her amazement was intense when, in Clara’s room, the partial removal of the blankets revealed a perfectly limp, nude form.
“Mother of God, doctor! Where are the craythur’s clothes?” Clara soon produced a bed-gown, and wrapping her in this, placed her in bed and revived her with stimulants. At this juncture Susie entered, and dismissed Ellen. Then followed an amiable dispute between Susie and Clara, as to which should watch with the patient.