out her message again, straining her voice until it broke, poised so
impatiently in the little boat, swinging under her feet, that she
seemed almost about to spring up towards the two men leaning over to
catch her words. When she finished, the older man nodded, the younger
one ran back up the stairs, and returned with a rope ladder.

Sylvia's boatman stirred himself with an ugly face of misgiving.
He clutched at her arm, and made close before her face the hungry,
Mediterranean gesture of fingering money. She took out her purse, gave
him the fifty-lire note, and catching at the ladder as it was flung
down, disregarding the shouted commands of the men above her to
"wait!" she swung herself upon it, climbing strongly and surely in
spite of her hampering skirts.

The two men helped her up, alarmed and vexed at the risk she had
taken. They said something about great crowds on the boat, and that
only in the second cabin was there a possibility for accommodations.
If she answered them, she did not know what she said. She followed the
younger man down a long corridor, at first dark and smelling of hemp,
later white, bright with electric light, smelling strongly of fresh
paint, stagnant air, and machine-oil. They emerged in a round hallway
at the foot of a staircase. The officer went to a window for a
conference with the official behind it, and returned to Sylvia to say
that there was no room, not even a single berth vacant. Some shabby
woman-passengers with untidy hair and crumpled clothes drew near,
looking at her with curiosity. Sylvia appealed to them, crying out
again, "My mother is very sick and I must go back to America at
once. Can't any of you--can't you--?" she stopped, catching at the
banisters. Her knees were giving way under her. A woman with a flabby
pale face and disordered gray hair sprang towards her and took her in
her arms with a divine charity. "You can have half my bed!" she cried,
drawing Sylvia's head down on her shoulder. "Poor girl! Poor girl! I
lost my only son last year!"

Her accent, her look, the tones of her voice, some emanation of deep
humanity from her whole person, reached Sylvia's inner self, the
first message that had penetrated to that core of her being since the
deadly, echoing news of the telegram. Upon her icy tension poured a
flood of dissolving warmth. Her hideous isolation was an illusion.
This plain old woman, whom she had never seen before, was her sister,
her blood-kin,--they were