low
on the left temple, and felt, at the same time, a feeble flutter of her
breath on my cheek. The discovery that she was not dead seemed to give
me back my senses again. I told one of the policemen where the nearest
doctor was to be found, and sat down by the bedside while he was gone,
and bathed her poor head with cold water. She never opened her eyes, or
moved, or spoke; but she breathed, and that was enough for me, because
it was enough for life.

The policeman left in the room was a big, thick-voiced, pompous man,
with a horrible unfeeling pleasure in hearing himself talk before an
assembly of frightened, silent people. He told us how he had found her,
as if he had been telling a story in a tap-room, and began with saying:
"I don't think the young woman was drunk."

Drunk! My Mary, who might have been a born lady for all the spirits she
ever touched--drunk! I could have struck the man for uttering the word,
with her lying--poor suffering angel--so white, and still, and helpless
before him. As it was, I gave him a look, but he was too stupid to
understand it, and went droning on, saying the same thing over and over
again in the same words. And yet the story of how they found her was,
like all the sad stories I have ever heard told in real life, so very,
very short. They had just seen her lying along on the curbstone a few
streets off, and had taken her to the station-house. There she had been
searched, and one of my cards, that I gave to ladies who promise me
employment, had been found in her pocket, and so they had brought her
to our house. This was all the man really had to tell. There was nobody
near her when she was found, and no evidence to show how the blow on her
temple had been inflicted.

What a time it was before the doctor came, and how dreadful to hear him
say, after he had looked at her, that he was afraid all the medical men
in the world could be of no use here! He could not get her to swallow
anything; and the more he tried to bring her back to her senses the
less chance there seemed of his succeeding. He examined the blow on her
temple, and said he thought she must have fallen down in a fit of some
sort, and struck her head against the pavement, and so have given her
brain what he was afraid was a fatal shake. I asked what was to be done
if she showed any return to sense in the night. He said: "Send for me
directly"; and stopped for a little while afterward stroking her head
gently with his hand,