“Come now,” said this personage, “this won’t do! Move on!”
“All right!” she answered, striving to speak cheerfully, and raising her eyes to the policeman’s good-natured countenance. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep here. I don’t know how I came to do it. I must go home, of course.”
“Of course,” said the policeman, somewhat mollified by her evident humility, and touched in spite of himself by the pathos of her eyes. Then turning his lamp more fully upon her, he continued, “Is that a baby you’ve got there?”
“Yes,” said Liz, half proudly, half tenderly. “Poor little dear! it’s been ailing sadly--but I think it’s better now than it was.”
And, encouraged by his friendly tone, she opened the folds of her shawl to show him her one treasure. The bulls-eye came into still closer requisition as the kindly guardian of the peace peered inquiringly at the tiny bundle. He had scarcely looked when he started back with an exclamation:
“God bless my soul!” he cried, “it’s dead!”
“Dead!” shrieked Liz; “oh, no, no! Not dead! Don’t say so, oh, don’t, don’t say so! Oh, you can’t mean it! Oh, for God’s love, say you didn’t mean it! It can’t be dead, not really dead!--no, no, indeed! Oh, baby, baby! You are not dead, my pet my angel, not dead, oh no!”
And breathless, frantic with fear, she felt the little thing’s hands and feet and face, kissed it wildly, and called it by a thousand endearing names, in vain--in vain! Its tiny body was already stiff and rigid; it had been a corpse more than two hours.
The policeman coughed, and brushed his thick gauntlet glove across his eyes. He was an emissary of the law, but he had a heart. He thought of his bright-eyed wife at home, and of the soft-cheeked, cuddling little creature that clung to her bosom and crowed with rapture whenever he came near.
“Look here,” he said, very gently, laying one hand on the woman’s shoulder as she crouched shivering against the wall, and staring piteously at the motionless waxen form in her arms; “it’s no use fretting about it.” He paused; there was an uncomfortable lump in his throat, and he had to cough again to get it down. “The poor little creature’s gone--there’s no help for it. The next world’s a better place than this, you know! There, there, don’t take on so about it”--this as Liz shuddered and sighed; a sigh of such complete despair that it went straight to his honest soul, and showed him how futile were his efforts at consolation. But he had his duty to attend to, and he went on in firmer tones: “Now, like a good woman, you just move off from here and go home. If I leave you here by yourself a bit, will you promise me to go straight home? I mustn’t find you here when I come back on this beat, d’ ye understand?” Liz nodded. “That’s right!” he resumed, cheerily. “I’ll give you just ten minutes; you just go straight home.”