raise her to her feet.  It was a fearful task none the less, for the poor wretch was foul with the mud in which she had been lying, and her wet hair was streaming over her shoulders; as Helen strove to lift her up the head sunk over upon her, but the girl bit her lips together grimly.  She put her arm about the woman’s waist, and David did the same on the other side, and so the three started, stumbling slowly along in the darkness.

“Are you sure that it is not too much for you?” David asked; “we can stop whenever you like, Helen.”

“No, let us go on,” the girl said; “she has almost no weight, and we must not leave her out here in the cold.  Her hands are almost frozen now.”

They soon made their way on down to where the lights of the little cottage shone through the trees.  David could not but shrink back as he thought of taking their wretched burden into their little home, but he heard the woman groan feebly, and he was ashamed of his thought.  Nothing more was said until they had climbed the steps, not without difficulty, and had deposited their burden upon the floor of the sitting room; after which David rose and sank back into a chair, for the strain had been a heavy one for him.

Helen also sprang up as she gazed at the figure; the woman was foul with every misery that disease and sin can bring upon a human creature, her clothing torn to shreds and her face swollen and stained.  She was half delirious, and clawing about her with her shrunken, quivering hands, so that Helen exclaimed in horror:  “Oh God, that is the most dreadful sight I have ever seen in my life!”

“Come away,” said the other, raising himself from the chair; “it is not right that you should look at such things.”

But with Helen it was only a moment before her pity had overcome every other emotion; she knelt down by the stranger and took one of the cold hands and began chafing it.  “Poor, poor woman!” she exclaimed; “oh, what misery you must have suffered!  David, what can a woman do to be punished like this?  It is fearful!”

It was a strange picture which the two made at that moment, the woman in her cruel misery, and the girl in her pure and noble beauty.  But Helen had no more thought of shrinking, for all her soul had gone out to the unfortunate stranger, and she kept on trying to bring her back to consciousness.  “Oh, David,” she said, “what can we do to help her?  It is too much that any human being should be like this,—­she would have died if we had not found her.”  And then as the other opened her eyes and struggled to lift herself, Helen caught an incoherent word and said, “I think she is thirsty, David; get some water and perhaps that will help her.  We must find some way to comfort her, for this is too horrible to be.  And perhaps it is not her fault, you know,—­who knows but perhaps some man may have been the cause of it all?  Is it not dreadful to think of, David?”