She turned her face away, and looked at the lights farther down the street.  “They said a good deal about me and him that wasn’t true.”  There was a pause, and then she looked at Bronson again.  “I told him he ought to stop coming to see me, and to make it up with his wife, but he said he liked me best.  I couldn’t help his saying that, could I, if he did?  Then he—­then this come,” she nodded to the jail, “and they blamed me for it.  They said that I stood in with the bank-robbers, and was working with them; they said they used me for to get him to help them.”  She lifted her face to the boy and the man, and they saw that her eyes were wet and that her face was quivering.  “That’s likely, isn’t it?” she demanded, with a sob.  She stood for a moment looking at the great iron gate, and then at the clock-face glowing dully through the falling snow:  it showed a quarter to twelve.  “When he was put away,” she went on, sadly, “I started in to wait for him, and to save something against his coming out.  I only got three dollars a week and my keep, but I had saved one hundred and thirty dollars up to last April, and then I took sick, and it all went to the doctor and for medicines.  I didn’t want to spend it that way, but I couldn’t die and not see him.  Sometimes I thought it would be better if I did die and save the money for him, and then there wouldn’t be any more trouble, anyway.  But I couldn’t make up my mind to do it.  I did go without taking medicines they laid out for me for three days; but I had to live—­I just had to.  Sometimes I think I ought to have given up, and not tried to get well.  What do you think?”

Bronson shook his head, and cleared his throat as if he were going to speak, but said nothing.  Gallegher was looking up at the girl with large, open eyes.  Bronson wondered if any woman would ever love him as much as that, or if he would ever love any woman so.  It made him feel lonesome, and he shook his head.  “Well?” he said, impatiently.

“Well, that’s all; that’s how it is,” she said.  “She’s been living on there at Tacony with her mother.  She kept seeing as many men as before, and kept getting pitied all the time; everybody was so sorry for her.  When he was took so bad that time a year ago with his lungs, they said in Tacony that if he died she’d marry Charley Oakes, the conductor.  He’s always going to see her.  Them that knew her knew me, and I got word about how Henry was getting on.  I couldn’t see him, because she told lies about me to the warden, and they wouldn’t let me.  But I got word about him.  He’s been fearful sick just lately.  He caught a cold walking in the yard, and it got down to his lungs.  That’s why they are letting him out.  They say he’s changed so.  I wonder if I’m changed much?” she said.  “I’ve fallen off since I was ill.”  She passed her hands slowly over her face, with a touch of vanity that hurt Bronson somehow, and he wished he might tell her how pretty she still was.  “Do you think he’ll know me?” she asked.  “Do you think she’ll let me speak to him?”