Will you promise

What could I do Here was a stranger utterly and helplessly at my mercyand that stranger a forlorn woman. No house was near; no one was passing whom I could consult; and no earthly right existed on my part to give me a power of control over her, even if I had known how to exercise it. I trace these lines, selfdistrustfully, with the shadows of afterevents darkening the very paper I write on; and still I say, what could I do