. And yet--perhaps
she lay unconscious long, and it is midnight now, or near morning, and
they have missed her at home. Oh, no--it is not possible. She knows
that she was not unconscious, she remembers everything clearly. She runs
across the bridge, shivering at the sound of her own steps. Now she sees
a figure coming toward her; she slows her pace. It is a man in uniform.
She walks more slowly, she does not want to attract attention. She feels
the man's eyes resting on her--suppose he stops her! Now he is quite
near; it is a policeman. She walks calmly past him, and hears him stop
behind her. With an effort she continues in the same slow pace. She
hears the jingle of street-car bells--ah, it cannot be midnight yet. She
walks more quickly--hurrying toward the city, the lights of which begin
there by the railroad viaduct--the growing noise tells her how near she
is. One lonely stretch of street, and then she is safe. Now she hears
a shrill whistle coming rapidly nearer--a wagon flies swiftly past her.
She stops and looks after it; it is the ambulance of the Rescue Society.
She knows where it is going. "How quickly they have come," she thinks;
"it is like magic." For a moment she feels that she must call to them,
must go back with them. Shame, terrible, overwhelming shame, such las
she has never known before, shakes her from head to foot--she knows how
vile, how cowardly she is. Then, as the whistle and the rumble of
wheels fade away in the distance, a mad joy takes hold of her. She is
saved--saved! She hurries on; she meets more people, but she does not
fear them--the worst is over. The noise of the city grows louder, the
street is lighter, the skyline of the Prater street rises before her,
and she knows that she can sink into a flood tide of humanity there and
lose herself in it. When she comes to a street lamp she is quite calm
enough now to take out her watch and look at it. It is ten minutes to
nine. She holds the watch to her ear--it is ticking merrily. And she
thinks: "Here I am, alive, unharmed--and he--he--dead. It is Fate." She
feels as if all had been forgiven--as if she had never sinned. And what
if Fate had willed otherwise? If it were she lying there in the ditch,
and he who remained alive? He would not have run away--but then he is
a man. She is only a woman, she has a husband, a child--it was her
right--her duty--to save herself. She knows that it was not a sense of
duty that impelled her to do it. But what