on the stage and, although later her lover
abandoned her and she suffered poverty and humiliation, she could
not tear herself away from the theater and now, she centered all her
love and all her hopes upon her child that had been seriously ill
since the spring.

"Where does she get all her strength?" thought Janina and then,
turning to Wolska, she asked: "What are you doing now?"

Wolska shuddered, a faint blush flitted over her worn face and her
lips quivered with a painful expression as she answered: "I
sing . . . What else could I do? I must live and must earn enough to
pay Johnnie's doctor bills. I must. Although it fills me with shame
to do it, I must. Alas, such is my fate, such is my fate!" she
moaned complainingly.

"But I don't know what you mean," said Janina, who could not
understand why Wolska should feel ashamed to earn a living by
singing.

"Because, you see, Miss Janina, I don't want anybody to know about
it. . . . You will keep it to yourself, won't you?" she begged with
tears in her eyes.

"Certainly I give you my word. Moreover, whom would I tell? . . . I
am all alone in the world."

"I sing in a restaurant on Podwal St.," said Wolska in a low and
hurried voice.

"In a restaurant!" whispered Janina, standing stock-still in
amazement.

"What else could I do? Tell me, what else could I do? I need money
for food and rent. How else could I earn it, when I don't even know
how to sew? At home I knew how to play on the piano a bit and could
speak a little French, but of course, that would not bring me a
penny now. I saw an advertisement in the Courier for a singer, so I
went there and got the position. They pay me a ruble a day together
with meals and . . ." but tears choked her voice and she grasped
Janina's hand and pressed it feverishly. Janina returned the
hand-clasp with a similar one and they walked on in silence.

"Come along with me, won't you? It will make me feel a little more
at ease," said Wolska.

Janina willingly agreed.

They entered the restaurant "Under the Bridge" on Podwal St. It was
a long and narrow garden with a few miserable trees. At the very
entrance there was a well. A whitewashed fence on the left side of
the garden divided it from the neighboring property which must have
been a lumberyard, for piles of beams and boards could be seen
looming above the fence. A few kerosene lanterns illuminated the
place. A number of little white tables with varnished tops and
arou