he exclaimed, "it's funny I never thought of
it before." Of course she referred to Mr. Bentley.

Thus; by no accountable process of reasoning, he stumbled into the path
which was to lead him to one of the widest and brightest of his vistas,
the secret of eternity hidden in the Parable of the Talents! But it will
not do to anticipate this matter . . . .

The divine in this woman of the streets regenerated by the divine in her
fellow-creatures, was gasping like a new-born babe for breath. And with
what anxiety they watched her! She grew strong again, went with Sally
Drover and the other girls on Sunday excursions to the country, applied
herself to her embroidery with restless zeal for days, only to have it
drop from her nerveless fingers. But her thoughts were uncontrollable,
she was drawn continually to the edge of that precipice which hung over
the waters whence they had dragged her, never knowing when the vertigo
would seize her. And once Sally Drover, on the alert for just such an
occurrence, pursued her down Dalton Street and forced her back . . .

Justice to Miss Drover cannot be done in these pages. It was she who
bore the brunt of the fierce resentment of the reincarnated fiends when
the other women shrank back in fear, and said nothing to Mr. Bentley or
Hodder until the incident was past. It was terrible indeed to behold
this woman revert--almost in the twinkling of an eye--to a vicious wretch
crazed for drink, to feel that the struggle had to be fought all over
again. Unable to awe Sally Drover's spirit, she would grow piteous.

"For God's sake let me go--I can't stand it. Let me go to hell--that's
where I belong. What do you bother with me for? I've got a right."

Once the doctor had to be called. He shook his head but his eye met
Miss Grower's, and he said nothing.

"I'll never be able to pull out, I haven't got the strength," she told
Hodder, between sobs. "You ought to have left me be, that was where I
belonged. I can't stand it, I tell you. If it wasn't for that woman
watching me downstairs, and Sally Grower, I'd have had a drink before
this. It ain't any use, I've got so I can't live without it--I don't
want to live."

And then remorse, self-reproach, despair,--almost as terrible to
contemplate. She swore she would never see Mr. Bentley again, she
couldn't face him.

Yet they persisted, and gained ground. She did see Mr. Bentley, but what
he said to her, or she to him, will never be known. She didn