al doubt, whether it came from the other side of life or was the
mere cry of a dream. Before Dorothy was aware of a movement of her will,
she was on her feet, and staring from the window. Something was lying on
the grass beyond the garden wall, close to the pond: it looked like a
woman. She darted from the house, out of the garden, and down the other
side of the wall. When she came nearer she saw it was indeed a woman,
evidently insensible. She was bare-headed. Her bonnet was floating in
the pond; the wind had blown it almost to the middle of it. Her face was
turned toward the water. One hand was in it. The bank overhung the pond,
and with a single movement more she would probably have been beyond help
from Dorothy. She caught her by the arm, and dragged her from the brink,
before ever she looked in her face. Then to her amazement she saw it was
Juliet. She opened her eyes, and it was as if a lost soul looked out of
them upon Dorothy--a being to whom the world was nothing, so occupied
was it with some torment, which alone measured its existence--far away,
although it hung attached to the world by a single hook of brain and
nerve.

"Juliet, my darling!" said Dorothy, her voice trembling with the love
which only souls that know trouble can feel for the troubled, "come with
me. I will take care of you."

At the sound of her voice, Juliet shuddered. Then a better light came
into her eyes, and feebly she endeavored to get up. With Dorothy's help
she succeeded, but stood as if ready to sink again to the earth. She
drew her cloak about her, turned and stared at the water, turned again
and stared at Dorothy, at last threw herself into her arms, and sobbed
and wailed. For a few moments Dorothy held her in a close embrace. Then
she sought to lead her to the house, and Juliet yielded at once. She
took her into one of the lower rooms, and got her some water--it was all
she could get for her, and made her sit down on the window-seat. It
seemed a measureless time before she made the least attempt to speak;
and again and again when she began to try, she failed. She opened her
mouth, but no sounds would come. At length, interrupted with choking
gasps, low cries of despair, and long intervals of sobbing, she said
something like this:

"I was going to drown myself. When I came in sight of the water, I fell
down in a half kind of faint. All the time I lay, I felt as if some one
was dragging me nearer and nearer to the pool. Then somethi