Even Sally Grover was powerless to prevent the inevitable, and the touch of her hand seemed the signal for the release of the pent-up forces.  The worn body, the worn nerves, the weakened will gave way, and Kate Marcy burst into a paroxysm of weeping that gradually became automatic, convulsive, like a child’s.  There was no damming this torrent, once released.  Kindness, disinterested friendship, was the one unbearable thing.

“We must bring her upstairs,” said Sally Grover, quietly, “she’s going to pieces.”

Hodder helping, they fairly carried her up the flight, and laid her on Sally Grover’s own bed.

That afternoon she was taken to Mrs. McQuillen’s.

The fiends are not easily cheated.  And during the nights and days that followed even Sally Grower, whose slight frame was tireless, whose stoicism was amazing, came out of the sick room with a white face and compressed lips.  Tossing on the mattress, Kate Marcy enacted over again incident after incident of her past life, events natural to an existence which had been largely devoid of self-pity, but which now, clearly enough, tested the extreme limits of suffering.  Once more, in her visions, she walked the streets, wearily measuring the dark, empty blocks, footsore, into the smaller hours of the night; slyly, insinuatingly, pathetically offering herself—­all she possessed—­to the hovering beasts of prey.  And even these rejected her, with gibes, with obscene jests that sprang to her lips and brought a shudder to those who heard.

Sometimes they beheld flare up fitfully that mysterious thing called the human spirit, which all this crushing process had not served to extinguish.  She seemed to be defending her rights, whatever these may have been!  She expostulated with policemen.  And once, when Hodder was present, she brought back vividly to his mind that first night he had seen her, when she had defied him and sent him away.  In moments she lived over again the careless, reckless days when money and good looks had not been lacking, when rich food and wines had been plentiful.  And there were other events which Sally Grower and the good-natured Irishwoman, Mrs. McQuillen, not holding the key, could but dimly comprehend.  Education, environment, inheritance, character—­what a jumble of causes!  What Judge was to unravel them, and assign the exact amount of responsibility?

There were other terrible scenes when, more than semiconscious, she cried out piteously for drink, and cursed them for withholding it.  And it was in the midst of one of these that an incident occurred which made a deep impression upon young Dr. Giddings, hesitating with his opiates, and assisting the indomitable Miss Grower to hold his patient.  In the midst of the paroxysm Mr. Bentley entered and stood over her by the bedside, and suddenly her struggles ceased.  At first she lay intensely still, staring at him with wide eyes of fear.  He sat down and took her hand, and spoke to her, quietly and naturally, and her pupils relaxed.  She fell into a sleep, still clinging to his fingers.