m at what might happen I
found the use of my tongue.

"Stop!" I cried out. "Wait for me. I want to speak to you before you go
away." She lifted her eyes with a look of careless surprise and a mocking
smile on her lips.

"What can _you_ have to say to me?" She stopped, and laughed to herself.
"Why not?" she said. "I have got nothing to do, and nowhere to go." She
turned back a step, and nodded to me. "You're a strange man--I think I'll
humor you--I'll wait outside." The door of the surgery closed on her. She
was gone.

I am ashamed to own what happened next. The only excuse for me is that I
was really and truly a man bewitched. I turned me round to follow her out,
without once thinking of my mother. The doctor stopped me.

"Don't forget the medicine," he said. "And if you will take my advice,
don't trouble yourself about that woman. Rouse up the constable. It's his
business to look after her--not yours."

I held out my hand for the medicine in silence: I was afraid I should fail
in respect if I trusted myself to answer him. He must have seen, as I saw,
that she wanted the laudanum to poison herself. He had, to my mind, taken
a very heartless view of the matter. I just thanked him when he gave me
the medicine--and went out.

She was waiting for me as she had promised; walking slowly to and fro--a
tall, graceful, solitary figure in the bright moonbeams. They shed over
her fair complexion, her bright golden hair, her large gray eyes, just the
light that suited them best. She looked hardly mortal when she first
turned to speak to me.

"Well?" she said. "And what do you want?"

In spite of my pride, or my shyness, or my better sense--whichever it
might me--all my heart went out to her in a moment. I caught hold of her
by the hands, and owned what was in my thoughts, as freely as if I had
known her for half a lifetime.

"You mean to destroy yourself," I said. "And I mean to prevent you from
doing it. If I follow you about all night, I'll prevent you from doing
it."

She laughed. "You saw yourself that he wouldn't sell me the laudanum. Do
you really care whether I live or die?" She squeezed my hands gently as
she put the question: her eyes searched mine with a languid, lingering
look in them that ran through me like fire. My voice died away on my lips;
I couldn't answer her.

She understood, without my answering. "You have given me a fancy for
living, by speaking kindly to me," she said. "Kindness has a wonderful