She knew that
he must be a poor benighted fellow just back from the trenches. He was
staring up at the place where the street-sign ought to have been. He
glanced at her, and said, in a fatigued, gloomy, aristocratic voice:
"Pardon me, Madam. Is this Denman Street? I want to find the Denman
Hostel."
Christine looked into his face. A sacred dew suffused her from head
to foot. She trembled with an intimidated joy. She felt the mystic
influences of all the unseen powers. She knew herself with holy dread
to be the chosen of the very clement Virgin, and the channel of a
miraculous intervention. It was the most marvellous, sweetest
thing that had ever happened. It was humanly incredible, but it had
happened.
"Is it you?" she murmured in a soft, breaking voice.
The man stooped and examined her face.
She said, while he gazed at her: "Edgar!... See--the wrist watch,"
and held up her arm, from which the wide sleeve of her mantle slipped
away.
And the man said: "Is it you?"
She said: "Come with me. I will look after you."
The man answered glumly:
"I have no money--at least not enough for you. And I owe you a lot of
money already. You are an angel. I'm ashamed."
"What do you mean?" Christine protested.
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