But no trace of her was to be seen. Meantime the
rain had ceased.
All the frightful stories that I had heard or read of the kidnapping
of girls came pouring into my mind, till my blood boiled and my knees
trembled. Imagination was stinging me to life's very core. Every few
minutes I would pass the theatre, and look towards the portico.
The night wore on, and I was unconscious how the time passed. It was
not till daybreak that I returned to my hotel, pale, weary, bent.
I threw myself upon my bed: it scorched me.
I could not think. At present I could only see--see what? At one
moment a squalid attic, the starlight shining through patched
window-panes upon a lonely mattress, on which a starving girl was
lying; at another moment a cellar damp and dark, in one corner of
which a youthful figure was crouching; and then (most intolerable of
all!) a flaring gin-palace, where, among a noisy crowd, a face was
looking wistfully on, while coarse and vulgar men were clustering
with cruel, wolfish eyes around a beggar-girl. This I saw and
more--a thousand things more.
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