for my eyes were on the ground; but her disconsolate look was fixed on
me: I felt without seeing it. A long time we were together, I and the
moon, walking side by side, she the dull shine, and I the live shadow.

Something on the ground, under a spreading tree, caught my eye with its
whiteness, and I turned toward it. Vague as it was in the shadow of
the foliage, it suggested, as I drew nearer, a human body. "Another
skeleton!" I said to myself, kneeling and laying my hand upon it. A body
it was, however, and no skeleton, though as nearly one as body could
well be. It lay on its side, and was very cold--not cold like a stone,
but cold like that which was once alive, and is alive no more. The
closer I looked at it, the oftener I touched it, the less it seemed
possible it should be other than dead. For one bewildered moment, I
fancied it one of the wild dancers, a ghostly Cinderella, perhaps,
that had lost her way home, and perished in the strange night of an
out-of-door world! It was quite naked, and so worn that, even in the
shadow, I could, peering close, have counted without touching them,
every rib in its side. All its bones, indeed, were as visible as if
tight-covered with only a thin elastic leather. Its beautiful yet
terrible teeth, unseemly disclosed by the retracted lips, gleamed
ghastly through the dark. Its hair was longer than itself, thick and
very fine to the touch, and black as night.

It was the body of a tall, probably graceful woman.--How had she come
there? Not of herself, and already in such wasted condition, surely! Her
strength must have failed her; she had fallen, and lain there until she
died of hunger! But how, even so, could she be thus emaciated? And how
came she to be naked? Where were the savages to strip and leave her?
or what wild beasts would have taken her garments? That her body should
have been left was not wonderful!

I rose to my feet, stood, and considered. I must not, could not let her
lie exposed and forsaken! Natural reverence forbade it. Even the
garment of a woman claims respect; her body it were impossible to leave
uncovered! Irreverent eyes might look on it! Brutal claws might toss
it about! Years would pass ere the friendly rains washed it into the
soil!--But the ground was hard, almost solid with interlacing roots, and
I had but my bare hands!

At first it seemed plain that she had not long been dead: there was not
a sign of decay about her! But then what had the slow wa