interesting. He is the only philanthropist I
have even found who will eat lard instead of butter so as to save more
for his philanthropy." Now his smile grew hard. "Don't dare to open your
eyes, Altruism," he commanded. "I saw the lids quiver a minute ago while
that old man was talking, but remember you're hypnotized."

He saw the rack-tender lay down his pike so as to give both hands to his
big rake.

He was pulling at something heavier than the ordinary flotsam--something
far below the surface of the water. At last it broke through the black
surface of the turbid flood. To Walker Farr, glancing carelessly, it
seemed like a bedraggled bundle of rags with something white at the end.

"You come help, m'sieu'," called old Etienne. "It is a dead woman."

Together they pulled the rake's dread burden slowly up the bars of the
rack.

"You seem pretty cool about this," gasped the young man.

"It is no new thing. Many drown themselves--they drown in the canal so
they will be found. Women and girls, they drown themselves. So! Help me
carry her."

Farr gazed down on her after she had been laid on the canal bank. She
was young, but thin and work-worn.

"Weaver," commented old Etienne, laying back on her breast one of the
hands he had lifted. "There's the marks on the fingers where she have
tie so many knots so quick."

There was a key on her breast; it was secured by a cord that passed out
of sight between the buttons on her waist. Farr stooped and pulled on
the key. A folded paper came with the key; the other end of the cord was
tied around the paper.

"You must not--it is for the coroner," protested Etienne. "I know the
law--I have drag up so many."

"My besetting sin is curiosity," declared the young man, his calm
impertinence unruffled. He pulled the wet paper from the noose of the
cord. "We'll read this together."

"I cannot read," confessed the rack-tender. "You shall read it to me."
His little black eyes gleamed now with curiosity of his own. "I shall be
glad to hear. The coroner he never read to me."

The water had spread the ink and spotted the paper, but Farr was able to
decipher the missive. He read aloud:

"'My head has grown bad since my husband died. It is grief, the awful
heat, the work at the looms. They said if I would give my little girl
away she could go to the country and grow well. But I could not give her
up for ever. I could not earn the money to send her to board. I could
not earn the mo