lost dream, and go to Shakspeare for tragedy when you want it? Tragedy!
Come here,--let me hear what you call this."

He led her through the passage, up a narrow flight of stairs. An old woman
in a flaring cap sat at the top, nodding,--wakening now and then, to rock
herself to and fro, and give the shrill Irish keen.

"You know that stoker who was killed in the mill a month ago? Of course
not,--what are such people to you? There was a girl who loved him,-you
know what that is? She's dead now, here. She drank herself to death,--a
most unpicturesque suicide. I want you to look at her. You need not blush
for her life of shame, now; she's dead.--Is Hetty here?"

The woman got up.

"She is, Zur. She is, Mem. She's lookin' foine in her Sunday suit. Shrouds
is gone out, Mem, they say."

She went tipping over the floor to something white that lay on a board, a
candle at the head, and drew off the sheet. A girl of fifteen, almost a
child, lay underneath, dead,--her lithe, delicate figure decked out in a
barred plaid skirt, and stained, faded velvet bodice,--her neck and arms
bare. The small face was purely cut, haggard, patient in its sleep,--the
soft, fair hair gathered off the tired forehead. Margaret leaned over her
shuddering, pinning her handkerchief about the child's dead neck.

"How young she is!" muttered Knowles. "Merciful God, how young she
is!--What is that you say?" sharply, seeing Margaret's lips move.

"'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'"

"Ah, child, that is old-time philosophy. Put your hand here, on her dead
face. Is your loss like hers?" he said lower, looking into the dull pain
in her eyes. Selfish pain he called it.

"Let me go," she said. "I am tired."

He took her out into the cool, open road, leading her tenderly
enough,--for the girl suffered, he saw.

"What will you do?" he asked her then. "It is not too late,--will you help
me save these people?"

She wrung her hands helplessly.

"What do you want with me?" she cried, weakly. "I have enough to bear."

The burly black figure before her seemed to tower and strengthen; the
man's face in the wan light showed a terrible life-purpose coming out
bare.

"I want you to do your work. It is hard; it will wear out your strength
and brain and heart. Give yourself to these people. God calls you to it.
There is none to help them. Give up love, and the petty hopes of women.
Help me. God calls you to the work."

Sh