He was up the next instant, and running with
huge paces diagonally towards the Surrey side. He had seen the
figure of a woman come flying along from the Westminster side,
without bonnet or shawl. When she came under the spot where we
stood, she had turned across at an obtuse angle towards the other
side of the bridge, and Falconer, convinced that she meant to throw
herself into the river, went over as I have related. She had all
but scrambled over the fence--for there was no parapet yet--by the
help of the great beam that ran along to support it, when he caught
her by her garments. So poor and thin were those garments, that if
she had not been poor and thin too, she would have dropped from them
into the darkness below. He took her in his arms, lifted her down
upon the bridge, and stood as if protecting her from a pursuing
death. I had managed to find an easier mode of descent, and now
stood a little way from them.
'Poor girl! poor girl!' he said, as if to himself: 'was this the
only way left?'
Then he spoke tenderly to her. What he said I could not hear--I
only heard the tone.
'O sir!' she cried, in piteous entreaty, 'do let me go. Why should
a wretched creature like me be forced to live? It's no good to you,
sir. Do let me go.'
'Come here,' he said, drawing her close to the fence. 'Stand up
again on the beam. Look down.'
She obeyed, in a mechanical kind of way. But as he talked, and she
kept looking down on the dark mystery beneath, flowing past with
every now and then a dull vengeful glitter--continuous, forceful,
slow, he felt her shudder in his still clasping arm.
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