n so remote from the elder sister's innocent
experiences that much of it was hardly intelligible to her. Evelina's
dreadful familiarity with it all, her fluency about things which Ann
Eliza half-guessed and quickly shuddered back from, seemed even more
alien and terrible than the actual tale she told. It was one thing--and
heaven knew it was bad enough!--to learn that one's sister's husband was
a drug-fiend; it was another, and much worse thing, to learn from that
sister's pallid lips what vileness lay behind the word.

Evelina, unconscious of any distress but her own, sat upright, shivering
in Ann Eliza's hold, while she piled up, detail by detail, her dreary
narrative.

"The minute we got out there, and he found the job wasn't as good as he
expected, he changed. At first I thought he was sick--I used to try to
keep him home and nurse him. Then I saw it was something different.
He used to go off for hours at a time, and when he came back his eyes
kinder had a fog over them. Sometimes he didn't har'ly know me, and
when he did he seemed to hate me. Once he hit me here." She touched her
breast. "Do you remember, Ann Eliza, that time he didn't come to see us
for a week--the time after we all went to Central Park together--and you
and I thought he must be sick?"

Ann Eliza nodded.

"Well, that was the trouble--he'd been at it then. But nothing like as
bad. After we'd been out there about a month he disappeared for a whole
week. They took him back at the store, and gave him another chance; but
the second time they discharged him, and he drifted round for ever so
long before he could get another job. We spent all our money and had to
move to a cheaper place. Then he got something to do, but they hardly
paid him anything, and he didn't stay there long. When he found out
about the baby--"

"The baby?" Ann Eliza faltered.

"It's dead--it only lived a day. When he found out about it, he got mad,
and said he hadn't any money to pay doctors' bills, and I'd better
write to you to help us. He had an idea you had money hidden away that
I didn't know about." She turned to her sister with remorseful eyes. "It
was him that made me get that hundred dollars out of you."

"Hush, hush. I always meant it for you anyhow."

"Yes, but I wouldn't have taken it if he hadn't been at me the whole
time. He used to make me do just what he wanted. Well, when I said I
wouldn't write to you for more money he said I'd better try and earn
some my