But she did not see any memory in it. She thought it was the cruel gray
river in the strange white city: and she cried to it; and went out
into the old familiar ways, and knew none of them; and ran feebly yet
fleetly through the bushes and flowers, looking up once at the stars with
a helpless broken blind look, like a thing that is dying.
"He does not want me!" she said to them; "he does not want me!--other
women kiss him there!"
Then with a low fluttering sound like a bird's when its wings are shot,
and yet it tries to rise, she hovered a moment over the water, and
stretched her arms out to it.
"He does not want me!" she murmured; "he does not want me--and I am so
tired. Dear God!"
Then she crept down, as a weary child creeps to its mother, and threw
herself forward, and let the green dark waters take her where they
had found her amidst the lilies, a little laughing yearling thing.
There she soon lay, quite quiet, with her face turned to the stars, and
the starling poised above to watch her as she slept.
She had been only Bebee: the ways of God and man had been too hard for
her.
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