into
a chair. He was devouring her face, trying to read behind her eyes,
praying she would go on, yet fearing to prolong the inquiry lest she
should discover his agitation.

"No, there ain't nobody," she said at last, "and if there was there
wouldn't--Stop! Hold on a minute, I got it! You've bin here six months
or more, ain't ye?"

Felix nodded, his eyes still fastened on her own. A nod was better than
the spoken word until his voice obeyed him the better.

"An' ye ain't had a soul in that room but yerself since ye've been here?
Is that true?"

Again Felix nodded.

"Of course it's true, whether ye say it or not. What a fool I was to ask
ye! I got it now. That sleeve-link belongs to a poor creature who slept
in that room three or four days before ye come and skipped the next
morning."

Felix's fingers tightened on the arm of the chair. For the moment it
seemed to him as if he were swaying with the room. "Some one you were
kind to, I suppose," he said, lifting a hand to shade his face, the
words coming one at a time, every muscle in his body taut.

"What else could we do? Leave the poor thing out in the cold and wet?"

"It was, then, some one you picked up, was it not?" The room had stopped
swaying and he was beginning to breathe evenly again. He saw that he had
not betrayed himself. Her calm proved it; and so did the infinite pity
that crept into her tones as she related the incident.

"No, some one Tom McGinniss picked up on his beat, or would have picked
up hadn't John and I come along. And that wet she was, and everything
streamin' puddles, an' she, poor dear, draggled like a dog in the
gutter."

Felix's sheltering hand sagged suddenly, exposing for a moment his
strained face and wide-open eyes.

"I didn't understand it was a woman," he stammered, turning his head
still farther from the light of the lamp.

"Yes, of course, it was a woman, and a lady, too. That's what I've been
a-tellin' ye. Here, take my seat if that light gets into your eyes. I
see it's botherin' ye. It's that red shade that does it. It sets John
half crazy sometimes. I'll turn it down. Well, that's better. Yes, a
lady. An' she wet as a rat an' all the heart out of her. An' that link
ye got in yer hand is hers and nobody else's. John and I had been to
evening service at St. Barnabas's, an' we hung on behind till everybody
had gone so as to have a word with Father Cruse, after he had taken off
his vestments. We bid him good night, com