“Everything was quiet. My own footsteps were smothered in the forest-turf, and a gentle shiver of the leaves was all the sound I heard. What had become of that poor girl? Had she already found time to make the plunge I felt sure she meditated. My heart shrunk from the thought, so I watched and waited, feeling the presence of another human soul, as one sometimes knows a thing independent of the senses. “As I stood in the shadow, something seemed to move on a large sloping-rock, which formed a picturesque feature in one corner of the grounds, on which the trees grew less thickly. That moment, a cloud swept back from the moon, and I saw the woman whom I had frightened so, standing on the rocks, which shot some distance into the stream, where the waters eddied and curled around it with a sweet, monotonous music, that seemed to lure and lure the woman on, till she stood on the very edge. Her shawl was thrown back now, and I saw the child. She did not look at it, but turned her face away, and lifted the infant high in her arms. “I started forward, but checked myself, for she had fallen down upon the rock, and hugging the child to her bosom, was kissing it with passionate vehemence, calling out. “‘I cannot—I cannot! Oh, my God! how could I think of it? My child! My child! You are not hurt! There! there! there! Oh, what can I do? what shall I do?’ “Again and again she fell to kissing the little creature, moaning over it like a dumb animal; breaking forth into bitter sobs, now and then, until some fear seized her, and she looked around, evidently terrified by her own voice. Full ten minutes she sat caressing the child, in her passionate despair. Then she arose to her feet once more, uplifted it in her arms, and staggering back, fell prone upon the rock, clasping the infant to her heart. “The struggle was terrible; but I had faith in the power of a motherhood which could battle so fiercely against an evil resolve, and waited, knowing, that at the worst, I could save her and the child. “She arose to a sitting posture, very pale and still now, for I could see her face, plainly, in the moonlight; and it was white as snow-white and beautiful. An exclamation almost broke from me. _I knew the face!_ More than once had I marveled at its beauty; more than once had I seen it beaming with love, uplifted to another face, which will never leave my memory—that of a man I love better than a brother. “Do you understand? Can you guess who this young mother was? I did not know her name; but there was no mistaking that proud, white face. “The young woman sat a long time, gazing at her child, in the moonlight, as if seized by some apathy of the soul which made that rock its last anchorage.