s well tell you that I'm grateful to you
for taking such good care of my patient. I'd also be glad of a chance
to help you a little, or give advice if you happen to need any."

Madge stared at him for a moment during which her eyes became somewhat
blurred. The doctor's offer seemed like the first really disinterested
and friendly one that had been proffered to her for some years. In
that vast New York she had become unused to that sort of thing. The
other people in this place had been ever so kind, of course, but it
was on account of their friend Hugo. At first she hesitated.

"You look like a man that can be trusted," she said, very low.

"I feel that I am," he answered, simply.

Then, gradually, moved by that desire to confess and trust in a friend
that is one of the best qualities of human nature, she told of her
coming, in halting, interrupted words. The doctor kept silent, nodding
now and then so that she became impressed with a certainty that he
understood. At times that deep red color suffused her cheeks, but they
would soon become pale again, all the more so for her dark-ringed
eyes. Little by little her story became easier to tell. She had
sketched it out in a few broad lines, but the man to whom she spoke
happened to know the world. Her speaking relieved her burdened heart
and gave her greater strength.

"And--and I think that's all," she faltered at last. "Do--do you
really understand? Do you think I've been a shameless creature to
venture into this? Can you realize what it is to be at the very end of
one's tether?"

The doctor looked at her, the tiny wrinkles in the corners of his eyes
becoming more pronounced. He put out his long-fingered, capable hand
to her, and she stretched out her own, timidly, in response.

"You and I, from this time on, are a pair of friends," he told her.
"Indeed, I'm acquainted with that huge beehive you came from, with its
drones and its workers, its squanderers and its makers. I studied
there for a couple of years, and I know why some of the women have a
choice between the river and even fouler waters. But let me tell you
what I think of this matter. The desperate effort you made to save
yourself may not have been very good judgment. Ninety-nine times out
of a hundred such an endeavor would be worse than jumping from the
frying-pan into the fire. But at least it argues something strong and
genuine in you. You came because you felt that you could not give up
the fight with