, nights and all, the sweats and the cough and
the shooting pains was cutting me in two. We gotta go easy for a while,
Charley; just--"

"You sick, Sara?" His fatty-white face lost a shade of its animation.
"Sick?"

"But it ain't, Charley. On his word he promised it ain't! A grand old
doc, with whiskers--he promised me that. I--I am just beginning; but
the stitch was in time. It ain't a real case yet, Charley. I swear, on
my mother's curl of hair, it ain't."

"Ain't what? Ain't what?"

"It ain't! Air, he said, right living--early hours and all. I gotta get
out of the basement. He'll get me a job. A grand old man! Windows open;
right living. No--no dancing and all, for a while, Charley. Three months
only, Charley; and then--"

"What, I say--"

"It ain't, Charley! I swear it ain't. Just one--the left one--a little
sore down at the base--the bottom. Charley, quit looking at me like
that! It ain't a real case--it ain't; it ain't!"

"It ain't what?"

"The--the T.B. Just the left one; down at--"

"You--you--" An oath as hot as a live coal dropped from his lips and he
drew back, strangling. "You--you got it, and you're letting me down
easy. You got it, and it's catching as hell! You got it, you white
devil, and--and you're tryin' to lie out of it--you--you--"

"Charley! Charley!"

"You got it, and you been letting me eat it off your lips! You devil,
you! You devil, you! You devil, you!"

"Charley, I--"

"I could kill you! Lemme wash my mouth! You got it; and if you got it I
got it! I got it! I got it! I--I--"

He rushed from the table, strangling, stuttering, staggering; and his
face was twisted with fear.

For an hour she sat there, waiting, her hands folded in her lap and her
eyes growing larger in her face. The dish of stew took on a thin coating
of grease and the beer died in the glass. The waiter snickered. After a
while she paid for the meal out of her newly opened wage envelope and
walked out into the air.

Once on the street, she moaned audibly into her handkerchief. There is
relief in articulation. Her way lay through dark streets, where figures
love to slink in the shadows. One threw a taunt at her and she ran. At
the stoop of her rooming house she faltered, half fainting and breathing
deep from exhaustion, her head thrown back and her eyes gazing upward.

Over the narrow street stars glittered, dozens and myriads of them.

* * * * *

Literature has little enou