With her head on Martha’s shoulder she told of the horror of that rainy April night when, with agonized hands against her hot cheeks, she had heard him stumbling up the narrow stairs staggering drunk, lunging through the door, and falling headlong at her feet.  Of the deadly fear born in her, for the first time in her life, she, helpless and alone, without a human being to whom she could appeal, not daring to disclose her own identity lest graver results might follow; he, prostrate before her, naked to his inmost bone, with all his perfidy exposed.  Of his cursing her conscientious scruples and family pride, her milk-and-water principles, demanding again that she should write her father and that very night, ending his entreaties with a blow of his fiat hand on her cheek which sent her reeling toward her narrow bed.

She had watched her chance, caught up her hat and cloak, and had slipped down-stairs, avoiding the crowd about the side-door, and had then fled as if for her life, to be found an hour later by an expressman’s wife, who had put her to bed with a kindness and tenderness she had not known since she left her husband’s roof.

Then there had followed a long, weary day’s search for work, ending at last in defeat when, disheartened and footsore, she had dragged herself once more up the hotel stairs, with another tightening of her resolution to fight it out to the end.

Greatly to her surprise, Dalton had received her with marked politeness.  He had begged her forgiveness, pleading that his nerves had been upset by his financial troubles.  With his arm around her, he had told her how young and pretty she still was, and how sad it made him when he thought he had ruined her life and brought her all these weary miles from home, his contrition being apparently so genuine, that she had determined to trust him once more, and would have told him so had she not gone into her room to change her dress, only to find that he had pawned the few remaining trinkets and articles of wearing-apparel she possessed, in order to try his luck in a neighboring pool-room.

She had realized, then, where she stood.  There was but one thing for her to do and that was to hunt again for work.  She had been an expert needlewoman in her better days and this knowledge might earn her their board.

With this in her mind, she had consulted a woman, living on the floor above, who had often spoken to her when they passed each other on the stairs, and who was employed in a department store on 14th Street near Broadway, the result being that Stiger & Company had given “Mrs. Stanton” a place in the repair shop, her wages being equal to her own and Dalton’s board.  This had continued all through the summer, her earnings keeping the roof over their heads, Dalton leaving her for days at a time, his invariable excuse for his absence being that he was “trying to get employment.”

Finally—­and again her eyes burned, and the color mounted to her hot cheeks as she reached this part of her story—­there had come that last awful, unforgettable December night.