s. There was a kink in her back; one arm, against which she
had rested heavily, was asleep.

"Fannie," Lila thought with a kind of falling despair, "must have come
back, looked for me, given me up, and gone home."

In the midst of Pelham Bay a fire twinkled, burning low. It looked like
a camp-fire deserted and dying in the centre of a great open plain. Lila
gave it no more than a somnambulant look. It told her nothing: no story
of sudden frenzied terror, of inextinguishable, unescapable flames, of
young people in the midst of health and the vain and wicked pursuit of
happiness, half-burned to death, half-drowned. It told her no story of
guilt providentially punished, or accidentally.

She had slept through all the shouting and screaming. The boats that had
attempted rescue had withdrawn; there remained only the hull of a
converted catboat, gasoline-soaked, burnt to the water's edge, a
cinder--still smouldering.

Somewhere under the placid waters, gathering speed in the tidal
currents, slowing down and swinging in the eddies, was all that remained
of Fannie Davis, food for crabs, eels, dogfish, lobsters, and all the
thousand and one scavengers of Atlantic bays, blackened shreds of
garments still clinging to her.

II

Next to Pelham Bay Park toward the south is a handsome private property.
On the low boundary wall of this, facing the road and directly under a
ragged cherry-tree, Lila seated herself. She was "all in." She must wait
until a vehicle of some sort passed and beg for a lift. She was
half-starved; her feet could no longer carry her. A motor thrilled by at
high speed, a fiery, stinking dragon in the night. Mosquitoes tormented
her. She had no strength with which to oppose them. The hand in which
she had held the poison-ivy was beginning to itch and swell.

A second motor approached slowly and came to a halt. A young man got
out, opened one of the headlights, struck a match, and lighted it. Then
he lighted the other. The low stone wall on which Lila sat and Lila
herself were embraced by the ring of illumination. It must have been
obvious to any one but a fool that Lila was out of place in her
surroundings; her peach-basket hat, the oxford ties of which she had
been so proud, told a story of city breeding. Her face, innocent and
childlike, was very touching.

The young man shut off his motor, so that there was a sudden silence.
"Want a lift somewhere?" he asked cheerfully.

Lila could not remember when