, are they?"

"All well. Your mother's been kind of poorly. She thought you'd
write to her." The girl clenched her hands under the bedclothing.
She could not speak just then. "There's nothing much happened. The
post office burned down last summer. They're building a new one.
And--I've been building. I tore down the old place."

"Are you going to be married, Jerry?"

"Some day, I suppose. I'm not worrying about it. It was something to
do; it kept me from--thinking."

The girl looked at him and something gripped her throat. He knew!
Rose might have gone down with her father, but Jerry knew! Nothing
was any use. She knew his rigid morality, his country-bred horror of
the thing she was. She would have to go back--to Rose and the
others. He would never take her home.

Down at the medicine closet the Probationer was carbolising
thermometers and humming a little song. Everything was well. The
Avenue Girl was with her people and at seven o'clock the Probationer
was going to the roof--to meet some one who was sincerely repentant
and very meek.

In the convalescent ward next door they were singing softly--one of
those spontaneous outbursts that have their origin in the hearts of
people and a melody all their own:

_'Way down upon de S'wanee Ribber,
Far, far away,
Dere's wha my heart is turnin' ebber--
Dere's wha de old folks stay._

It penetrated back of the screen, where the girl lay in white
wretchedness--and where Jerry, with death in his eyes, sat rigid in
his chair.

"Jerry?"

"Yes."

"I--I guess I've been pretty far away."

"Don't tell me about it!" A cry, this.

"You used to care for me, Jerry. I'm not expecting that now; but if
you'd only believe me when I say I'm sorry----"

"I believe you, Elizabeth."

"One of the nurses here says----Jerry, won't you look at me?" With
some difficulty he met her eyes. "She says that because one starts
wrong one needn't go wrong always. I was ashamed to write. She made
me do it."

She held out an appealing hand, but he did not take it. All his life
he had built up a house of morality. Now his house was crumbling and
he stood terrified in the wreck. "It isn't only because I've been
hurt that I--am sorry," she went on. "I loathed it! I'd have
finished it all long ago, only--I was afraid."

"I would rather have found you dead!"

There is a sort of anesthesia of misery. After a certain amount of
suffering the brain cea