d and whose future was doubtful? And the child! What
infant could live in an air like this? Edging away from the house, I
called out her name, but no answer came back. The persons whom we had
heard flitting in restless longing about the house a few moments before
had left in rage, and she, possibly, with them. Yet I could not imagine
her joining herself to people of their stamp. There had been a
solitariness in her aspect which seemed to forbid any such
companionship. Whatever her story, at least she had nothing in common
with the two ill-favoured persons whose faces I had seen looking in at
the casement. No; I should find her alone, but where? Certainly the ring
of mist, surrounding me at that moment, offered me little prospect of
finding her anywhere, either easily or soon.

Again I raised my voice, and again I failed to meet with response. Then,
fearing to leave the house lest I should be quite lost amid the fences
and brush lying between it and the road, I began to feel my way along
the walls, calling softly now, instead of loudly, so anxious was I not
to miss any chance of carrying comfort, if not succour, to the woman I
was seeking. But the night gave back no sound, and when I came to the
open door of a shed I welcomed the refuge it offered, and stepped in. I
was, of course, confronted by darkness--a different darkness from that
without, blanket-like and impenetrable. But when after a moment of
intense listening I heard a soft sound as of weariful breathing, I was
seized anew by hope, and, feeling in my pocket for my matchbox, I made a
light and looked around.

My intuitions had not deceived me: she was there. Sitting on the floor
with her cheek pressed against the wall, she revealed to my eager
scrutiny only the outlines of her pure, pale profile; but in those
outlines and on those pure, pale features I saw such an abandonment of
hope, mingled with such quiet endurance, that my whole soul melted
before it, and it was with difficulty I managed to say:

"Pardon! I do not wish to intrude; but I am shut out of the house also,
and the night is raw and cold. Can I do nothing for your comfort or
for--for the child's?"

She turned toward me, and I saw the faintest gleam of pleasure tremble
in the sombre stillness of her face, and then the match went out in my
hand, and we were again in complete darkness. But the little wail, which
at the same instant rose from between her arms, filled up the pause as
her sweet "Hush!