whose that boy is--when he wasn't a
month old. He knew that Mr. Goodloe helped me to go away three months
ago and--and begin again, and he don't really believe that the parson
enticed me back. The gang just put that in his head when he was
drinking. He does think that Mr. Goodloe knows about it all and I'm
afraid--afraid that some time when he's drunk he'll try to make him tell
and--and--there'll be murder, maybe double murder. I can't tell you
anything. I'm a fly caught in a web and I'm being drawn down to hell. I
thought there was a way out; the parson prayed with me and I saw it. I
saw myself right and honest again, but--but at a word I--I came back.
Even the good of the child couldn't hold me when the--the calling came.
Please go and leave me, and forget about me and--and don't come down
here again."

"No, Martha, I must help you," I answered, decidedly. I had never been
able to bear any kind of frustration and this made me doubly determined.

"It's too late, Miss Charlotte, but, Oh, it ain't too late for some of
the others. Luella May and Sadie Todd and the rest. Miss Charlotte, make
the Town men let 'em alone, and stop the Saturday night games and dances
down here. You can do it. Pa would kill me for saying it, for it is then
he makes his money, but it isn't fair, it isn't fair. You Town women do
the same things, but you are protected and looked after. When Grace
Payne gets drunk at your Country Club you take her home yourself and see
no harm comes to her, and the men she's with protect her from
themselves, but it's not the same with Luella May Spain and--and me."

"How did you know about Grace, Martha?" I faltered with terror in my
heart. I felt a kind of class nakedness that made me burn with positive
physical shame.

"They all watch and talk about what you do, Miss Charlotte, you
especially, because you are more beautiful and more--more strong than
the rest. They all said you'd smash our going to the church meetings
with the Town folks at the Country Club when you got home. But I always
stand up that you are right and you are. The Town on the hill and the
Settlement in the valley are better--better apart. That's why I'm
begging you to go and leave me to fight it out or go under. Please go!"

"Oh, but, Martha, I didn't--I don't--" I was beginning to falter a
denial to what had suddenly struck me as a truth when we were
interrupted by the advent of Martha's child, the Stray, as I afterwards
found was the on