At dead of night, I was called from bed
To a place where sin had made its lair;
The hasty messenger only said:
" A woman is dying there. "

A dance house down in a dismal row,
Haunted and kept by the low and vile,
Where the free winds never come and go,
Nor a sunbeam deigns to smile.

To the blare of music, rose and fell
The mirth of the dancers, wild and loud,
And the air was vexed as the smoke of hell
Went up from that reeling crowd.

I followed my guide from stair to stair,
Where blood-stained hands had left their trace,
And night lamps burned with a ghastly glare,
In the gloom of the haunted place.

" That is the room, sir, " he curtly said,
" Where the woman lies; you may hear her moan. "
And I found her there, on a wretched bed,
Gasping for breath and alone.

A delicate woman, still young and fair,
Ruined and wrecked on the world's cold strand,
With a queenly brow, long golden hair,
And a dainty, dimpled hand.

Her cheeks were stained with a hectic glow,
Her eyes aflame with a strange, wild light;
" Doctor, she said, " I am very low;
Do you think I shall die to-night?"

" Ah, yes, " she added, " you come too late;
My-desolate life is ebbing fast;
I have drained the dregs of a cruel fate,
But the horror will soon be past.

" I was not always the loathsome thing
That good men pity and women shun;
My life was bright in its hopeful spring —
Too bright for the goal it won.

" I've sown the whirlwind, and garnered tears,
I have stained my path with sin and crime;
And, to me it seems a thousand years
Since the days of a better time.

" When or whence the betrayer came,
It matters little, nor need I tell
Of his high position and sounding name;
'Tis enough that I loved him well.

" Loved — nay, worshipped the ground he trod,
And, never waiting to count the cost,
Followed my idol, forgetting God,
And worshipped till all was lost.

" He left me degraded, friendless, poor,
Blighted, and banned without and within;
I dared not enter a good man's door,
And was lost in a den of sin.

" I tried to bury remorse and shame;
But, under the mask of my soul's disguise,
Still felt the unquenchable fire and flame
Of the worm that never dies.

" Loathing, abhorring the life I led,
My every smile was a heartless lie;
But the world refused me honest bread,
And, alas, I could not die.

" But once I stood in the driving snow,
Famished and faint, on a winter night,
And looked through a window, all aglow,
Into a boudoir warm and bright.

" And there, at home, with his child and wife,
In 'broidered slippers and velvet gown,
Was the man that blighted my heart and life,
And cast me adrift on the town.

" Many a time, in my guilt and pain,
As the bitter years of life went by,
I said, " If ever we meet again,
The coward, betrayer, shall die."

" And there, alone with my aching heart,
A homeless waif, on the cold, bleak street,
I said, " O perjured, though long apart,
We have met, and revenge is sweet."

" I raised my hand with a steady aim,
But, O thank Heaven, ere the bullet sped;
A better thought to the rescue came —
Dizzy and blind, I turned and fled.

" Fled from the sight of that splendid room,
With its wealth and warmth and golden light,
Through the bitter storm and starless gloom,
To the pitiless heart of night.

" Fainting, I fell on the frozen ground,
And awhile forgot all pain and strife,
But a watchman found me on his round,
And tortured me back to life.

" O, the rest of that dreamless sleep
To my bleeding heart and burning brain;
To the eyes that only wake to weep —
Will it ever come again? "

I answered: " Yes, there is rest alway
For the penitent soul at Mercy's door;
The Savior of sinners says, to-day,
To the guilty, " Go and sin no more." "

" Alas, " she murmured, " I dare not pray;
My doom is written; it is too late!
O, that my soul could steal away,
And hide from God and human hate. "

At length she slept; and I went my way
From the loathsome place, in the dreary dawn,
By the drunken gamblers, still at play,
And the dancers reeling on.

The world went 'round, with its throbs and throes,
Its pride of place and its greed of gold,
Till I had forgotten that sick girl's woes,
And the story her white lips told.

And then, by chance, I met her again,
In a home where peace and love abide;
Clothed and redeemed from her guilt and stain,
By the blood of the Crucified.

There, saved in the Blessed Shepherd's fold,
Counting all earthly gain but loss;
Like Mary, the Magdelen of old,
She wept by the Savior's cross.

" Thank God, " I said, " that we may bring
To Him, the harvest love has crowned,
And join the anthem angels sing,
In heaven, when the lost is found. "