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Calvary Alley by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
page 293 of 366 (80%)
and wet. He remembered a swinging door two squares away.

As he left the bridge, he saw the woman in the blue veil hurry past him,
and with a furtive look about her, turn and go down the steep levee
toward the water. There was something so nervous and erratic in her
movements, that he stopped to watch her.

For a few moments she wandered aimlessly along the bank, apparently
indifferent to the pelting rain; then she succeeded, after some
difficulty, in climbing out on one of the coal barges that fringed the
river bank.

[Illustration: "Don't call a policeman!" she implored wildly]

Dan glanced down the long length of the bridge, empty now save for a few
pedestrians and a lumbering truck in the distance. In mid-stream the
paddle of a river steamer was churning the water into foam, and
up-stream, near the dock, negro roustabouts could be heard singing. But
under the bridge all was silent, and the levee was deserted in both
directions. He strained his eyes to distinguish that vague figure on the
barge from the surrounding shadows. He saw her crawling across the
shifting coal; then he waited to see no more.

Plunging down the bank at full speed, he scrambled out on the barge and
seized her by the arms. The struggle was brief, but fierce. With a cry
of despair, she sank face downward on the coal and burst into
hysterical weeping.

"Don't call a policeman!" she implored wildly. "Don't let 'em take me to
a hospital!"
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