He told himself that, as a stranger in the city, he would not be able to find a refuge--an institution that time of night--and he knew that he was lying to himself, and wondered why.
The impulse that directed his course toward the canal was rather grim, but he remembered the tree which had been sanctuary for him that day. He carefully lowered the little girl over the fence and climbed after her. And she did not call any more for her mother because this strange new scene seemed to impress her and fill her with wonderment. She stared up into the dim, mysterious, rustling foliage of the tree for a long time. She patted her hands upon the grass as if it were something she had never seen or felt before. She seemed to be making her first acquaintance with Mother Nature--claiming the heritage of outdoors that children so intensely covet. The sloped ceiling and the walls of the attic room had been sky and landscape for her. She peered into the still waters of the canal and saw the stars reflected there, and cocked her ear to listen when sleepy birds stirred above and chirped in their dreams. And then she fell asleep again and he tucked her within his coat to keep from her the dampness of the faint mist rising from the canal.
The dawn flushed early and she woke when the birds did, and found so much to interest her--ants who ran up and down the tree, funny bugs that tumbled, robins who bounced along the sward on stiff legs--that she did not ask for her mother nor seem to find at all strange the companionship of this tall man whose face was so kind.
And so Etienne Provancher found them when he came with his rake and pike-pole at six o'clock, the hour when the great turbines began to grunt and rumble in their deep pits.
“It is Rosemarie--I found her in the room,” said Walker Farr.
The old man came close and gazed down on the pallor and pathos of this little snipped who still stared at the new wonders of outdoors.
“Anodder one, hey? You found her lock up?”
“Yes, and I brought her away--and I don't know just what the matter is with me, Etienne. I have not been inclined to put myself out for anybody in this world--man, woman, or child--of late years. I had made up my mind to let the world run itself.”