ver."

But no. The river has refused to take that child. It has been moved
to pity by so great gentleness and charm. In the light of the lanterns
swinging to and fro on the shore, a black group forms and moves away.
She is saved! It was a sand-hauler who fished her out. Policemen are
carrying her, surrounded by boatmen and lightermen, and in the darkness
a hoarse voice is heard saying with a sneer: "That water-hen gave me a
lot of trouble. You ought to see how she slipped through my fingers!
I believe she wanted to make me lose my reward." Gradually the tumult
subsides, the bystanders disperse, and the black group moves away toward
a police-station.

Ah! poor girl, you thought that it was an easy matter to have done with
life, to disappear abruptly. You did not know that, instead of bearing
you away swiftly to the oblivion you sought, the river would drive you
back to all the shame, to all the ignominy of unsuccessful suicide.
First of all, the station, the hideous station, with its filthy benches,
its floor where the sodden dust seems like mud from the street. There
Desiree was doomed to pass the rest of the night.

At last day broke with the shuddering glare so distressing to invalids.
Suddenly aroused from her torpor, Desiree sat up in her bed, threw off
the blanket in which they had wrapped her, and despite fatigue and fever
tried to stand, in order to regain full possession of her faculties and
her will. She had but one thought--to escape from all those eyes that
were opening on all sides, to leave that frightful place where the
breath of sleep was so heavy and its attitudes so distorted.

"I implore you, messieurs," she said, trembling from head to foot, "let
me return to mamma."

Hardened as they were to Parisian dramas, even those good people
realized that they were face to face with something more worthy of
attention, more affecting than usual. But they could not take her back
to her mother as yet. She must go before the commissioner first. That
was absolutely necessary. They called a cab from compassion for her; but
she must go from the station to the cab, and there was a crowd at the
door to stare at the little lame girl with the damp hair glued to
her temples, and her policeman's blanket which did not prevent her
shivering. At headquarters she was conducted up a dark, damp stairway
where sinister figures were passing to and fro.

When Desiree entered the room, a man rose from the shadow and came to
me