he bargain. He found himself curiously willing to
take anything from her hand that was in her power to supply. He felt
no sense of awkwardness, no arrogant pride, no irritating obligation.
She had become for him one of the definite, though unexplainable,
facts of existence which he accepted with all the simplicity of a
child of misfortune.

She answered promptly, sending cigarettes and tobacco and a pipe. But
her letter was devoid of news---except that she had passed Hilmer's
again and found Helen wheeling Mrs. Hilmer back and forth in the
sunshine at the appointed hour. But, as time wore on, it transpired
that this seemingly innocent passing and repassing of the Hilmer house
carried unmistakable point. Presently, to Mrs. Hilmer, basking in the
sun and deserted for a moment, Ginger had nodded a brief good-morning.
There followed other opportunities for even more prolonged greetings
until the moment when Ginger had boldly carried on a short
conversation in the coldly calm presence of Helen Starratt. Helen must
have known Ginger. It was inconceivable that any woman, under the
circumstances, could have forgotten. But either indecision or a veiled
purpose made her assume indifference, and Ginger's progress was
registered in a short sentence at the end of a brief scrawl which
said:

To-day I took a book out and read to Mrs. Hilmer for an hour
in the sunshine.

And later another statement forwarded this curious drama with pregnant
swiftness:

Yesterday, I told Mrs. Hilmer about you.

Fred read this sentence over and over again. To what purpose did
Ginger discuss him with Mrs. Hilmer? ... Surely not altogether in the
name of entertainment.

Meanwhile, summer died, hot and palpitant and arid to the end. And
autumn came gently with cool, foggy mornings and days of sunshine
mellowed like old gold. Fred Starratt rose in rapid succession to the
position of pantryman, head waiter to the attendants, assistant
bookkeeper in the office. He was given more and more freedom. Indeed,
between the working intervals, undisturbed by even a formal
surveillance, he and Monet fell to taking walks far afield. He found
the shorter days more tolerable. With dusk coming on rapidly, it was
easier to accept the inflexible rule that required everyone to be in
bed and locked up by seven o'clock.

New faces made their appearance in Ward 6, old ones vanished. Clancy
made a get-away sometime in September just before the construction