She saw, now, that the river symbolized not only life as a whole, with its many ever-changing conditions and currents, amid which the individual must live;--the river symbolized, as truly, the individual life, with its ever-changing moods and motives,--its ever-varying and often-conflicting currents of instinct and training,--its infinite variety of intellectual deeps and shallows,--its gentle places of spiritual calm,--and its wild and turbulent rapids of dangerous passion.
"What hitherto unsuspected currents in her life-river," she asked herself, "had carried her so easily into falsehood?
What strange forces were these," she wondered, "that had set her so suddenly against honesty and truthfulness and law and justice?
And this stranger,--this wretched, haggard-faced, drunken creature, who had been brought by the mysterious currents of life to her door,--what was there in him that so compelled her protecting interest?
What was it within him, deeply hidden under the repellent exterior of his being, that had so awakened in her that strange feeling of possession,--of motherhood ?" It was not strange that, in her mental and spiritual extremity, the dear old gentlewoman's life-long habit should lead her to kneel beside the stranger's bed and pray for understanding and guidance.

It was significant that she did not ask her God to forgive the lie.
And, presently, as she prayed, she felt the man on the bed move.

Then a hand lightly touched her hair.

She remained very still for a little,--her head still bowed.

The hand that touched so reverently the silvery gray hair trembled a little.