The Girl from Nowhere by Baillie Reynolds

In her utter helplessness / Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry, / As of a wild thing, taken in a trap, / Which sees the trapper coming through the wood. / -- TENNYSON.

Outside, the raw March day was drawing to its unbeautiful close. They crept together along by the railings, as sorry a couple of cripples as ever started forth into the world together. Young Vanston could not walk without reeling -- the only thing that held him in control was his anxiety respecting the girl, whose face was still ashen, and who gasped and panted as she moved. He had solicitously felt her ribs -- a proceeding rendered easy by her thinness and emptiness, poor child. He had ascertained that no bones were broken, though the pain was severe, and he vaguely diagnosed it to himself as "something internal."