When Romney told me that,—for now and then He came to tell me how the search advanced, His voice dropped: I bent forward for the rest: The woman had been with her, it appeared, At first from week to week, then day by day, And last, ’twas sure ... I looked upon the ground To escape the anguish of his eyes, and asked As low as when you speak to mourners new Of those they cannot bear yet to call dead, ‘If Marian had as much as named to him A certain Rose, an early friend of hers, A ruined creature.’ ‘Never,’—Starting up He strode from side to side about the room, Most like some prisoned lion sprung awake, Who has felt the desert sting him through his dreams. ‘What was I to her, that she should tell me aught? A friend! was _I_ a friend? I see all clear. Such devils would pull angels out of heaven, Provided they could reach them; ’tis their pride; And that’s the odds ’twixt soul and body-plague! The veriest slave who drops in Cairo’s street, Cries, ‘Stand off from me,’ to the passengers; While these blotched souls are eager to infect, And blow their bad breath in a sister’s face As if they got some ease by it.’ I broke through. ‘Some natures catch no plagues. I’ve read of babes Found whole and sleeping by the spotted breast Of one a full day dead. I hold it true, As I’m a woman and know womanhood, That Marian Erle, however lured from place, Deceived in way, keeps pure in aim and heart, As snow that’s drifted from the garden-bank To the open road.’ ’Twas hard to hear him laugh. ‘The figure’s happy. Well—a dozen carts And trampers will secure you presently A fine white snow-drift. Leave it there, your snow! ’Twill pass for soot ere sunset. Pure in aim? She’s pure in aim, I grant you,—like myself, Who thought to take the world upon my back To carry it o’er a chasm of social ill, And end by letting slip through impotence A single soul, a child’s weight in a soul, Straight down the pit of hell! yes, I and she Have reason to be proud of our pure aims.’ Then softly, as the last repenting drops Of a thunder-shower, he added, ‘The poor child; Poor Marian! ’twas a luckless day for her, When first she chanced on my philanthropy.’ He drew a chair beside me, and sate down; And I, instinctively, as women use Before a sweet friend’s grief,—when, in his ear, They hum the tune of comfort, though themselves Most ignorant of the special words of such, And quiet so and fortify his brain And give it time and strength for feeling out To reach the availing sense beyond that sound,— Went murmuring to him, what, if written here, Would seem not much, yet fetched him better help Than, peradventure, if it had been more.