oul;
Where through each dead roseleaf that clings,
Pale as transparent psyche-wings,
To the vile text, are traced such things
As might make lady's cheek indeed
More than a living rose to read;
So nought save foolish foulness may
Watch with hard eyes the sure decay;
And so the lifeblood of this rose,
Puddled with shameful knowledge flows
Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose;
Yet still it keeps such faded show
Of when 'twas gathered long ago,
That the crushed petals' lovely grain,
The sweetness of the sanguine stain,
Seen of a woman's eyes must make
Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache,
Love roses better for its sake:--
Only that this can never be:--
Even so unto her sex is she!_

"_Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,
The woman almost fades from view.
A cipher of man's changeless sum
Of lust, past, present, and to come,
Is left. A riddle that one shrinks
To challenge from the scornful sphinx._

"_Like a toad within a stone
Seated while Time crumbles on;
Which sits there since the earth was curs'd
For Man's transgression at the first;
Which, living through all centuries,
Not once has seen the sun arise;
Whose life, to its cold circle charmed,
The earth's whole summers have not warmed;
Which always--whitherso the stone
Be flung--sits there, deaf, blind, alone;--
Aye, and shall not be driven out
'Till that which shuts him round about
Break at the very Master's stroke,
And the dust thereof vanished as smoke,
And the seed of Man vanished as dust:--
Even so within this world is Lust!_"

--From "Jenny," by Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. NIGHT COURT
II. WHEN LOVE COMES VISITING
III. THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT
IV. WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID
V. ROSES AND THORNS
VI. THE WORK OF THE GANGSTERS
VII. THE CLOSER BOND
VIII. THE PURITY LEAGUE AND ITS ANGEL
IX. THE BUSY MART OF TRADE
X. WHEN THE TRAIN COMES IN
XI. THE POISONED NEEDLE
XII. THE REVENGE OF JIMMIE THE MONK
XIII. LORNA'S QUEST FOR PLEASURE
XIV. CHARITY AND THE MULTITUDE OF SINS
XV. THE FINISH

ILLUSTRATIONS

If ever prayer came from the depths of a broken heart, it was that
forlorn plea for a lost sister . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

"This is my friend, Sam Shepard, the theatrical manager, Miss Lorna.
He's the man who can get you on the stage"

"I'm going to shoot to kill. Every cour