CHAPTER VIII

FACING THE PROBLEM

My fingers closed yet more tightly over the small hand, but her face remained rigid, the lines deep about the mouth.

“The landlady had turned me out,” speaking now bitterly and swiftly, “retaining my few belongings, and calling me a foul name which made me cower away like a whipped child.  I had nothing left—­nothing.  For a week I had listened to no kind word, met with no kind act.  I was upon the street, alone, at night, purposeless, homeless, wandering aimlessly from place to place, weakened by hunger, stupefied by despair.  Men spoke to me, and I fled their presence as though they were pestilence; women, painted, shameless creatures, greeted me in passing as one of their own class, and I sought to avoid them.  Once I mustered sufficient courage to ask help, but—­but the man only laughed, and called me a foul name.  I do not know where I went, what the streets were called.  I remember the brilliantly lighted hotel:  the theater crowds jostling me on the sidewalks; the saloons where I saw women slipping in through side entrances, the strains of piano music jingling forth on the night air.  I—­I knew what it meant, and lingered, faint and trembling, before one illuminated front, like a fascinated bird, until a drunken man, reeling forth, laid hand on my shoulder with proposal of insult.  I broke away from him, and ran into the dark, every nerve tingling.”

She shuddered, catching her breath sharply.

“Then—­then I found myself out among the residences, where everything was still and lonely, walking, walking, walking, every shadow appearing like a ghost.  I sat down to rest on the curbing, but a policeman drove me away; once I crept into a darkened vestibule in a big apartment building, but another discovered me there, and threatened to take me to the station.  I did n’t care much by that time, yet finally he let me go, and I crept miserably on.  I became afraid of the police; I felt as I suppose criminals must feel; I slunk along in the dark shadows like a hunted thing.  The night grew misty and damp, but I found no shelter.  I had no will power left, no womanhood, no remorse; I had become a thing to play with, a body without a soul.  I had ceased to care, to think, to even remember; I only wanted to drop the struggle, and have it over with.  Perhaps I should have taken my own life, had I only known how to accomplish it—­it seemed infinitely worse to live than to die.  It was thus I came there, to that corner.  I heard the policeman approaching along the side street, and, terrified, sprang into the yard to escape—­then—­then, I met you.”

Someone laughed at one of the other tables, and I wheeled about in my chair.  For an instant I believed her voice had been overheard, but instantly realized the mistake and turned back, noticing how she was trembling.

“Tell me,” I questioned earnestly, “what caused you to interfere between me and the officer?”