Quick as a flash came the horrible thought that she had come there to die—that she intended to commit suicide.
With a choking cry of horror he ran swiftly towards her.
CHAPTER IV.
STORY OF THE GIRL WHO ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.
Richard Treadwell sat moodily on a bench, half supporting the limp form of the girl he had just saved from death.
He had caught her just as she threw up her hands with a pitiful, weak cry, ready to spring into the reservoir.
“My dear young woman, don’t take on so,” he said, vexedly, as the girl leaned against his shoulder, and sobbed in a heart-broken, distracted manner. “You are safe now.”
As if that could be consolation to a woman who was seeking death which sought her not.
“Really, I am sorry, you know, but there’s a good girl, don’t cry,” making a ludicrous attempt to console her. “I did it before I thought; if I had known how much you would have been grieved, I—I assure you, upon my honor, I wouldn’t have done it. I—I haven’t much to live for, either, still when I saw what you intended to do—it shocked me that you should be so desperate. Now that it’s all over I wouldn’t cry any more. I’d laugh, as if it were a joke, you know. I’d say the fates had saved me for some treat they had reserved for me. There, that’s better, don’t cry, you are not hurt—not even wet.”
The girl broke into a nervous, hysterical laugh, in which the sobs struggled for mastery. Dick, much relieved, added a laugh that sounded rather hollow and mirthless.
“I c-can’t help it,” said she, haltingly and endeavoring to stop her sobs. “It seems so unreal to be still living when I wanted to be dead. I—I thought it all over, and it seemed so comforting to think of it being ended. Then I couldn’t see, nor think, nor hear, nor suffer. Oh, why did you stop me?”