“If ye’d ‘a’ seen her, Mr. O’Day, it would have torn ye all to pieces.  The life and spirit was all out of her.  She was like a child half asleep, that would go anywhere you took her.  If I’d said, ‘Come along, I’m goin’ to drown ye,’ she’d ‘a’ come just the same.  Not one word fell out of her mouth.  Just went along between us, John an’ I helpin’ her over the curbs and gutters until she got to this kitchen, an’ I sat her down in that chair, close by the stove, and began to dry her out, for her dress was all soaked in the mud and streamin’ with water.  I got some hot coffee into her, an’ found a pair of John’s old shoes, an’ put ’em on her feet till I had dried her own, an’ when she got so she could speak —­not drunk, mind ye, nor doped; just dazed like as if she had been hunted and had given up all hope.  She said like a sick child speakin’:  ’You’ve been very kind, and I’m very grateful.  I’ll go now.’

“‘No, ye won’t,’ I says; ’ye’ll stay where ye are.  Ye don’t leave this place to-night.  Ye’ll go up-stairs and git into my bed.’  She looked at me kind o’ scared-like; then she looked at John an’ our big man Mike who had come in while I was dryin’ her out, but I stopped that right away.  ‘No, ye needn’t worry,’ I said, ‘an’ ye won’t.  Ye’re just as safe here as ye would be in your mother’s arms.  Ye ain’t the first one my man John an’ I have taken care of, an’ ye won’t be the last.  Take another sip o’ that hot coffee, an’ come with me.’

“Well, we got her up-stairs, an’ I helped her undress, an’ when I unhooked her skirt an’ it fell to the floor, I saw what I was up aginst.  She had the finest pair of silk stockings on her feet ye ever seen in your life, and her petticoat was frills up to her knees.  She said nothin’ an’ I said nothin’.  ‘Git in,’ I said, an’ I turned down the cover and come out.  The next mornin’ the boys had to get over to Hoboken, an’ I was up before daylight and then back to bed again.  At seven o’clock I went to her room and pushed in the door.  She was gone, an’ I’ve never seen her since.  That cuff-link’s hers.  Take it up-stairs with ye an’ put it in the wash-stand drawer.  I’ll lose it if I keep it down here, an’ she’s bound to come back for it some day.  What time is it?  Twelve o’clock, if I’m alive!  Well, then, I’m goin’ to bed, and you’re goin’, too.  John’s got his key, and there’s his coffee, but he won’t be long now.”

Felix sat still.  Only when she had finished busying herself about the room making ready to close the place for the night did he rouse himself.  So still was he, and so absorbed that she thought he had fallen asleep, until she became aware of a flash from under the overhanging brows and heard him say, as if speaking to himself:  “It was very good of you.  Yes, very good—­of you—­to do it, and—­I suppose she never came back?”

“She never did,” returned Kitty, drawing a chair away from the heat of the stove, “and I’m that sorry she didn’t.  I’ll fix the lights when ye’ve gone up.  Good night to ye.”