"The woman dropped her head as she neared the man. The man peered into her
face, in the manner of one who had acquired the habit of examining the
countenances of passers-by.
"The two met under the gas-lamp that is so conspicuous a night feature of
the north side of Locust Street, between Ninth and Tenth.
"The woman gave no attention to the man. So exhausted was she that she
leaned helplessly against the fence. The man ran forward, shrieking like a
lunatic.
"'Jeannie!'
"The woman lifted her eyes in a dull kind of amazement and whispered:
"'Donald!'
"She fell back, but he caught her in his arms and kissed her lips a dozen
times, with a half-savage gladness, crying and laughing hysterically, as
women do.
"When the policeman had reached the pair, the woman had seen the last of
this world.
"Afterward we found that she had been discharged from the municipal
hospital, where she had been in the smallpox ward two weeks before; and we
surmised that she had virtually had nothing to eat since then.
"At the station-house the man explained that the woman was his runaway
wife. He had started in search of her two years before, with no other clue
as to her whereabouts than the knowledge that she had sailed for America
with a man named Ferriss--"
"What?" cried Max.
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