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.