moment looking at the brawny black figure lying on the
counter. The old days of Tinder and the paddock,--I don't know why I
thought of them. It did not move: it never would move again. Dead. I had
murdered him. I! I got my fingers in my oily hair, and pulled at it.
"Hetty, Hetty Manning," I said, "good bye! Good bye, Daniel!" I remember
hearing myself laugh as I left the shop-door; then I went down the
street.

When I was far down the Bowery, an old thought came feebly up in my
brain. It was how the water had choked, choked, all that night long in
the wheel of the boat. When I thought of that, I waited to think. Then I
turned and went to the bay, beyond Castle Garden.

* * * * *

The rain, drip, dripping on a cottage-roof: on branches, too, near at
hand, that rustled and struck now and then against the little
window-shutters, in a fashion just dreary enough to make one nestle
closer into the warm bed, and peep out into the shadowy chamber, with
the cozy little fire burning hotly in the grate. Patter, patter:
gurgling down the spouts: slacking for a minute, threatening to stop and
let you sleep in a usual, soundless, vulgar way, as on other nights:
then at it again, drip, drip, more monotonous, cheerfuller in its
dreariness than ever. Thunder, too: growling off in the hills, where the
night and rain found no snug little bed-room to make brighter by their
besieging: greenish-white jets of lightning in the cracks of the
shutters, making the night-lamp on the toilet-table and the fire
suddenly go out and kindle up fiercely again.

This for a long time: hours or not, why should one try to know? A little
bed, with crimson curtains, cool white pillows: a soft bed, where the
aching limbs rested afresh with every turn. After a while, a
comfortable, dumpling little figure in a loose wrapper, popping out of
some great chair's depths by the fire and stirring some posset on the
hearth: smelling at a medicine-bottle: coming to the bed-side, putting a
fat hand on one's forehead: a start, a nervous kiss, a shaky little
laugh or two, as she fumbles about, saying, "Hush-h!" and a sudden
disappearing behind the curtains. A grave, pale face looking steadily
down, as if afraid to believe, until the dear eyes fill with tears, and
the head, with its old wig, is dropped, and I and God only know what his
soul is saying.

"My husband!"

"Hetty!"

"Is it you?--Daniel?"

He lifted me in his arms farther up