As I gazed upon them, a strange hallucination possessed me. It seemed to me that I was looking, not merely at the passing procession, but at the tender mothers of all mankind, and that, with them, I saw the mountain of anguish, the unremembered toil, the care and undying self-sacrifice which they had borne since the race began. What did not man owe to woman! In the close of the procession came the young women who were just verging upon marriageable age, the tender and blooming maidens who were still dallying in the primrose path of free and beautiful girlhood. The sight of these innocent and care-free creatures would seem to have lightened and dissipated the effect of the sight of the unabated misery that had preceded them, but on the contrary, it immeasurably heightened the awful effect. For these, it appeared, were the perfumed and garlanded victims who were soon to be offered up to the fearful Moloch who presided over woman’s destiny. “A few short years,” it seemed to say, “and the rosy hours of youth’s unfettered dance will be over. Then, I claim you for the three great classes into which women are divided,--despised old maids, feeding on the social crusts thrown from a profligate’s table; equally despised courtesans, sitting at that table with man in wanton revelry; and married menials, propagative drudges, meekly waiting upon that table, having no voice in the allotment of their own destiny, and no power over their own persons.” This voice ringing in my ears, together with the woeful procession which had passed before my eyes, had completely daunted me. I could bear it no longer. It was as if my conscience had been preternaturally aroused, and had brought before my mind’s eye, in long defile, a black array of unsuspected sins. Rapt as I had been in the contemplation of this strange procession, I felt that I must flee from it as I would flee from a spot where I had committed a dastardly crime. I turned in anguish to break my way through the crowd of men, anywhere to get away from the awful evidence of misery in the producing of which I had been an accomplice with all men. Judge, then, of my speechless amazement, my absolute horror, on turning, to find that there was not a man in sight. Pierced as I had been with an agonising contrition, it still appeared that I was more callous than the men by whom I had been surrounded. Unable to bear the heavy reproach of their consciences, they had slunk away one after another, till I, without knowing it, had been left entirely alone. This discovery was too great for my nerves, weakened as they had been by the ceaseless shocks of the past few days. My brain whirled. I was conscious of a sudden movement toward me by some of the women in the procession and then all was a blank. I had fainted. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII.