a farm?"

"Yes. In Minnesota."

"Did you do work like that?" She pointed at a thrashing machine in the
field.

"Yes, I plowed and sowed and reaped and mowed. I wasn't on the farm for
my health."

"You're very strong, aren't you?" she asked admiringly.

"In a slab-sided kind of a way--yes."

Her eyes grew abstracted.

"I like strong men. Ollie was a little man, not any taller than I am,
but when he was drunk he was what men call a--a--holy terror. He struck
me with the water pitcher once--that was just before baby was born. I
wish he'd killed me." She ended in a sudden reaction to hopeless
bitterness. "It would have saved me all these months of life in this
terrible country."

"It might have saved you from more than you think," he said quietly,
tenderly.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been brought up against women and men who have defiled you.
They've made your future uncertain."

"Do you think it's so bad as that? Tell me!" she insisted, seeing his
hesitation.

"You're on the road to hell!" he said, in a voice that was very low, but
it reached her. It was full of pain and grave reprimand and gentleness.
"You've been poisoned. You're in need of a good man's help. You need the
companionship of good, earnest women instead of painted harlots."

Her voice shook painfully as she replied:

"You don't think I'm _all_ bad?"

"You're not bad at all--you're simply reckless. _You_ are not to blame.
It depends upon yourself now, though, whether you keep a true woman or
go to hell with Mrs. Shellberg."

The conductor eyed them as he passed, with an unpleasant light in his
eyes, and the drummers a few seats ahead turned to look at them. The tip
had passed along from lip to lip. They were like wild beasts roused by
the presence of prey. Their eyes gleamed with relentless lust. They eyed
the little creature with ravening eyes. Her helplessness was their
opportunity.

Allen, sitting there, saw the terror and tragedy of the girl's life. Her
reckless, prodigal girlhood; the coarse, rich father; the marriage, when
a thoughtless girl, with a drunken, dissolute boy; the quarrels, brutal
beatings; the haste to secure a divorce; the contamination of the
crowded hotels in Heron Lake--and this slender young girl, naturally
pure, alert, quick of impulse--she was like a lamb among lustful wolves.
His heart ached for her.

The deep, slow voice of the lawyer sounded on. His eyes turned toward
her had no equivocal look. He wa