Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/28

 As he neared her he saw that it was her hat she was nursing. She had taken it off and covered it with a handkerchief to protect it from the rain, and her hair was soaked and glistening in the light of the electric lamp above her. He supposed that she was a woman of the streets.

At his approach she looked up, and he had just time to appreciate that she was young and rather pretty, when she shivered and whined up at him; and, opening her mouth, with her tongue protruding over her lower teeth, she panted at him, ingratiatingly, like a dog.

For a moment Carey thought he had gone crazy. Then, "It's hydrophobia!" he thought. "She's been bitten by a mad dog!"

He looked around for a policeman, frightened.

His future was determined by the fact that there was no policeman in sight and he had time to recollect that it was one of his many grievances against mankind that dogs with minor ailments were always being shot as mad when, as he was convinced, rabies was a disease as rare as leprosy.

He approached her much as he would have approached the dog in the same circumstances. He asked, "What's the matter?"

She did not answer.

He bent down to her, putting his hand on her shoulder. "What is it?"

She shivered under his touch. "Aren't you well?"