ving freed from just so much of the burden. The
sickness on every hand appalled Susan. Surely, she said to old
Brashear, the like had never been before; on the contrary, said
he, the amount of illness and death was, if anything, less than
usual because the hard times gave people less for eating and
drinking. These ghastly creatures crawling toward the hospital
or borne out on stretchers to the ambulance--these yet ghastlier
creatures tottering feebly homeward, discharged as cured--these
corpses of men, of women, of boys and girls, of babies--oh, how
many corpses of babies!--these corpses borne away for burial,
usually to the public burying ground--all these stricken ones in
the battle ever waging, with curses, with hoarse loud laughter,
with shrieks and moans, with dull, drawn faces and jaws set--all
these stricken ones were but the ordinary losses of the battle!

"And in the churches," said old Tom Brashear, "they preach the
goodness and mercy of God. And in the papers they talk about how
rich and prosperous we are."

"I don't care to live! It is too horrible," cried the girl.

"Oh, you mustn't take things so to heart," counseled he. "Us
that live this life can't afford to take it to heart. Leave that
to them who come down here from the good houses and look on us
for a minute and enjoy themselves with a little weepin' and
sighin' as if it was in the theater."

"It seems worse every, day," she said. "I try to fool myself,
because I've got to stay and----"

"Oh, no, you haven't," interrupted he.

Susan looked at him with a startled expression. It seemed to her
that the old man had seen into her secret heart where was daily
raging the struggle against taking the only way out open to a
girl in her circumstances. It seemed to her he was hinting that
she ought to take that way.

If any such idea was in his mind, he did not dare put it into
words. He simply repeated:

"You won't stay. You'll pull out."

"How?" she asked.

"Somehow. When the way opens you'll see it, and take it."

There had long since sprung up between these two a sympathy, a
mutual understanding beyond any necessity of expression in words
or looks. She had never had this feeling for anyone, not even
for Burlingham. This feeling for each other had been like that
of a father and daughter who love each other without either
understanding the other very well or feeling the need of a
sympathetic understanding. There was a strong rese