It moved lightly, more lightly than _she_ had done of late, and now it was hurrying—hurrying across the crisp meadow, whose damp marshiness the frost had seized fast—hurrying towards the river. And he hurried too; without thought, blindly. But the moon slid behind a cloud again, all grew dark, and the spirit—if spirit it was—was lost in the shadow. Still he hurried; now he seemed to see it here—now there—he was not sure; perhaps it was all a dream. But his liquor had never served him so before—and he had often been worse drunk. He was near upon turning back, when the moon fringed the cloud with silver again, and gradually showed him the figure, as clear as in daylight, standing upon the bridge that led across to the road. He looked; it was facing him, but though in the white light and to his heated sense the features looked ghostly still, and the eyes wild and inhuman, there was something life-like about the creature, and even as he looked, it threw up its arms and took one leap forwards and downwards into the water. Then he awoke; he was no longer drunk. He did not stop to think—he dashed forward, stripping off his coat as he ran, and pushed through the reeds on the river bank, and plunged into the stream. The cold of the water was horrible—it took his breath away. But, as luck would have it, the stream here was not deep but swift, and it carried the body towards him; he clutched it, caught it, and, half swimming, half wading, brought it, in little more than a minute, safely on to the bank. His teeth were chattering, but it was not with fright now; he had forgotten that he had once fancied this to have been a ghost. It was a girl, and it lay motionless. He stripped off the shoddy black jacket and wrung the water from it, then tried to wring it from the poor, clinging cotton skirts, that were stiffening with frost in the biting air; after that he chafed the cold body, and took off the worn boots and emptied the water out of them; and then he searched in his pockets, and drew forth a half-pint flat bottle, which he put to her lips. A pungent odour of common spirit filled the air. “It’s lucky I left a drop,” he murmured to himself, and a keener satisfaction than he had ever experienced even from drinking it himself filled him as he watched the colour slowly come back to the ashen face. But it took a deal of rubbing again before the eyes opened, before any breath seemed to come struggling through those pale lips. Several times he was for leaving her and running for assistance, because he was frightened. But the village was far behind, and he was afraid she might die while he was gone; so he waited with a beating heart, and at last she moved and tried to speak. “D’ye feel better now?” said he. She nodded feebly. He passed his hand under her head and set her up against his knee. But the head drooped again, and she began to shiver.