19. CHAPTER XIX.
A LOST SHEEP.
THE two sallied out and walked arm in arm up the
street. It was a keen, bright, starlight night, with
everything on earth frozen stiff and hard, and the stars
above sparkling and glinting like white flames in the intense
clear blue. Just at the turn of the second street, a
woman who had been crouching in a doorway rose, and,
coming up towards the two, attempted to take Harry's
arm.
With an instinctive movement of annoyance and disgust,
he shook her off indignantly.
Bolton, however, stopped and turned, and faced the
woman. The light of a street lamp showed a face, dark,
wild, despairing, in which the history of sin and punishment
were too plainly written. It was a young face, and
one that might once have been beautiful; but of all that
nothing remained but the brightness of a pair of wonderfully
expressive eyes. Bolton advanced a step towards
her and laid his hand on her shoulder, and, looking
down on her, said:
“Poor child, have you no mother?”
“Mother! Oh!”
The words were almost shrieked, and then the woman
threw herself at the foot of the lamp-post and sobbed
convulsively.
“Harry,” said Bolton, “I will take her to the St.
Barnabas; they will take her in for the night.”
Then, taking the arm of the woman, he said in a
voice of calm authority, “Come with me.”
He raised her and offered her his arm. “Child, there
is hope for you,” he said. “Never despair. I will take
you where you will find friends.”
A walk of a short distance brought them to the door
of the refuge, where he saw her received, and then turning
he retraced his steps to Harry.
“One more unfortunate,” he said, briefly, and then
immediately took up the discussion of a point in the
proof-sheet just where he had left it. Harry was so
excited by the incident that he could hardly keep up the
discussion which Bolton was conducting.
“I wonder,” he said, after an interval, “who that
woman is, and what is her history.”
“The old story, likely,” said Bolton.
“What is curious,” said Harry, “is that Eva described
such a looking woman as hanging about our house the
other evening. It was the evening when she was going
over to the Vanderheyden house to persuade the old
ladies to come to us this evening. She seemed then
to have been hanging about our house, and Eva spoke
in particular of her eyes—just such singular, wild, dark
eyes as this woman has.”
“It may be a mere coincidence,” said Bolton. “She
may have had some errand on your street. Whatever
the case be, she is safe for the present. They will do
the best they can for her. She's only one more grain in
the heap!”
Shortly after, Harry took leave of Bolton and returned
to his own house. He found all still, Eva waiting
for him by the dying coals and smoking ashes of the
fire. Alice had retired to her apartment.
“We've had an adventure,” he said.
“What! to-night?”
Harry here recounted the scene and Bolton's course,
and immediately Eva broke out: “There, Harry, it must
be that very woman that I saw the night I was going
into the Vanderheyden's; she seems to be hanging round
this neighborhood. What can she be? Tell me, Harry,
had she very brilliant dark eyes, and a sort of dreadfully
haggard, hopeless look?”
“Exactly. Then I was provoked at her assurance in
laying her hand on my arm; but when I saw her face I
was so struck by its misery that I pitied her. You ought
to have seen Bolton; he seemed so calm and commanding,
and his face, as he looked down on her, had a wonderful
expression; and his voice,—you know that heavy,
deep tone of his,—when he spoke of her mother it perfectly
overcame her. She seemed almost convulsed, but
he assumed a kind of authority and led her away to the
St. Barnabas. Luckily he knew all about that, for he
had talked with St. John about it.”
“Yes, indeed, I heard them talking about it this very
evening; so it is quite a providence. I do wonder who
she is or what she is. Would it do for me to go to-morrow
and inquire?”
“I don't know, my dear, as you could do anything.
They will do all that is possible there, and I would not
advise you to interfere merely from curiosity. You can
do nothing.”
“Strange!” said Eva, still looking in the fire while
she was taking the hairpins out of her hair and loosening
her neck ribbon, “strange, the difference in the lot of
women. That girl has been handsome! People have
loved her. She might have been in a home, happy like
me, with a good husband—now there she is in the cold
streets. It makes me very unhappy to think such things
must be. You know how Bolton spoke of God, the
Good Shepherd—how he cared more for one lost one
than for all that went not astray. That is so beautiful—
I do hope she will be saved.”
“Let us hope so, darling.”
“It seems selfish for me to wrap my comforts about
me, and turn away my thoughts, and congratulate myself
on my good luck—don't it?”
“But, darling, if you can't do anything, I don't know
why you should dwell on it. But I'll promise you Bolton
shall call and inquire of the Sisters, and if there is anything
we can do, he will let us know. But now it's late,
and you are tired and need rest.”
