gh drove her crazy; so she left him."

"Does she know Mr. Felix is here?" He had finished with the callous
spots and was cracking every horny knuckle in his fingers as he spoke,
as if their loosening might help solve the problem that vexed him.

"No, I haven't dared tell her. She would be off the dock for sure then.
She is more afraid of him than she is of Dalton."

"Mr. Felix won't hurt her," he rejoined sharply.

"Yes, but she knows she'd hurt HIM if he finds out how bad she's
off. She'd rather he'd think she's living like she used to do. Oh,
Stephen--Stephen, but it's a bad, bad business! I'm beat out wondering
what ought to be done."

She pushed back her chair, and began walking up and down the room like
one whose suffering can find no other relief, pausing now and then to
speak to him as she passed. "I tried to get her to listen. I told her
Mr. Felix might be coming over from London. I had to put it to her that
way, but she nearly went out of her mind, stiffened up, and began to put
on such a wild look that I had to stop. Have you heard from him lately?"

"No, I wrote and wrote and could get no answer. Then I went up to where
he boarded, and the woman told me he'd been gone some months--she didn't
know where. He left no word, and she forgot to get the name of the
express that came for his trunk. He is down with sickness somewheres,
or he'd have showed up. He was not himself at all when I last saw
him--that's long before you got back from Canada. He's done nothing but
walk the streets since he come ashore."

Stephen stopped, as if it were too painful for him to continue, looked
around the room, noting its bareness, and asked, with a break in his
voice: "Where do you put her?"

"In the little room. She wouldn't take mine and she won't let me help
her. She got work at first on 14th Street, in that big store near the
Square, and worked there for a while, that was when she was with Dalton.
But Dalton drove her out. And when she was near dead, with nothing to
eat, some people picked her up and she stayed with them all night--she
never told me where. That was last spring. She stood it for some months
living from hand to mouth, she working her fingers to the bone for him,
until she was afraid of her life and left him again. She was going she
didn't know where when I looked at her 'cross the car and she saw me.

"'Martha!' she cried, and was on the seat next me, my two arms about
her. She was sobbing like a lost ch