“Ten months.  She never intended it to know anything of its mother.  She hoped she would die before it was old enough to understand.  It’s a little girl.  Etta is eighteen.”

The room grew still and, getting up, Mrs. Mundy put more coal on the fire, made blaze spring from it, warm and red.  I waited for her to go on.

“It seems like Mr. Harrie can’t stay away from her, the girl says.  He never sees the child, though.  The other woman, who’s married and has children of her own, still keeps it for her.  She’s named Banch.”  Mrs. Mundy looked up.  “I’ve found where the Banches live.  It’s only two squares from where Etta is now living.”

“But Harrie?” I turned off the light behind me.

“He is with Etta.  He was taken ill on Christmas night.  Except the doctor, no one knows he is with her.  He would have been dead by now had it not been for Etta, the doctor says.  He had pneumonia.  Mr. Guard and Mr. Crimm have gone to see him to-night, to see when he can be moved away.”

“And Etta—­what will become of her?”

Mrs. Mundy looked into the fire.  “What can become of any girl like that but to go back to the old life?  She’s an outcast forever.”

“And he—­” I got up.  All the repression of past ages was breaking into revolt.  “He will go home and feed on the leaven of Pharisees and hypocrites, and later he will marry a girl of his world, and the world that will give him welcome will keep Etta in her hell.  I wonder sometimes that God doesn’t give us up—­we who call ourselves clean and good!  We are a lot of cowards, most of us women, of ’fraid-cats and cowards!”

My hands made gesture, and, going to the window, I looked out, ashamed of my outburst.  Beating one’s head against the walls of custom and convention accomplished nothing.  All sane people agreed concerning the injustice of one person paying the price of the sin of two people; all normal ones admitted that what was wicked in a woman was wicked in a man, but agreement and admission were terms of speech.  Translation into action would have meant a bigger price than even sane and normal and righteous people were willing to pay.  Men could hardly be blamed, but women should be, for the continuance of old points of view.  Women are no longer ignorant or dependent, and the time for silence and acceptance is past.  Perhaps the women of Lillie Pierce’s world are not so much to be despaired of as some of mine and other sheltered worlds; the soulless, spineless, selfish ones who cannot always justly draw their skirts aside, and yet do draw them with eyebrows raised, and curling lips, and gesture that means much.  I, too, have been a coward.  I, too, have been long asleep.  But there were other women who had been making splendid fight while I was wasting time, and at thought of them came courage, and under my breath I prayed God to make it grow.

“You must bring Etta here.”  I turned from the window.  “I want to talk to her, to see if something can’t be done.  Surely something can be done!  She might get some rooms not far from here and take the child to live with her.  Mr. Thorne will doubtless make his brother go away.  Can you see her to-morrow and bring her here?”