When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips
were parted, and she was breathing--not softly as usual with her, but in
long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every
breath. As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the
collar of her nightdress close around her throat. Whilst she did so
there came a little shudder through her, as though she felt the cold. I
flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight round her neck,
for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air,
unclad as she was. I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to
have my hands free that I might help her, I fastened the shawl at her
throat with a big safety-pin; but I must have been clumsy in my anxiety
and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her breathing
became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I
had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet and then began
very gently to wake her. At first she did not respond; but gradually she
became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing
occasionally. At last, as time was passing fast, and, for many other
reasons, I wished to get her home at once, I shook her more forcibly,
till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. She did not seem surprised
to see me, as, of course, she did not realise all at once where she was.
Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must
have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking
unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace. She
trembled a little, and clung to me; when I told her to come at once with
me home she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As we
passed along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince. She
stopped and wanted to insist upon my taking my shoes; but I would not.
However, when we got to the pathway outside the churchyard, where there
was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with
mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home, no
one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare feet.
Fortune favoured us, and we got home without meeting a soul. Once we saw
a man, who seemed not quite sober, passing along a street in front of
us; but we hid in a door till he had disappeared up an opening such as
there are here, steep little closes, or wynds, as they call them in
Scotland. My heart beat so loud all the time that sometimes I thought I
should faint. I was filled with anxiety about Lucy, not only for her
health, lest she should suffer from the exposure, but for her reputation
in case the story should get wind. When we got in, and had washed our
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