er.
She was not blind to his faults, but she excused them. His vices, his
drinking, cigarette smoking and general shiftlessness were, she argued,
the result of bad associates. He was self-indulgent. He made good
resolutions and broke them. But he was not really vicious. He had a good
heart. With some one to watch him and keep him in the straight path, he
would still give a good account of himself to the world. She was
confident of that. She recognized many excellent qualities in him. They
only wanted fostering and bringing out. That was why she married him.
She was a few years his senior; she felt that she was the stronger
mentally. She considered it was her duty to devote her life to him, to
protect him from himself and make a man of him.

It was not her fault, she mused, if she were not a lady. Literally
brought up in the gutter, what advantages had she had? Her mother died
in childbirth and her father, a professional gambler, abandoned the
little girl to the tender mercies of an indifferent neighbor. When she
was about eight years old her father was arrested. He refused to pay
police blackmail, was indicted, railroaded to prison and died soon after
in convict stripes. There was no provision for Annie's maintenance, so
at the age of nine she found herself toiling in a factory, a helpless
victim of the brutalizing system of child slavery which in spite of
prohibiting laws still disgraces the United States. Ever since that time
she had earned her own living. The road had often been hard, there were
times when she thought she would have to give up the fight, other girls
she had met had hinted at an easier way of earning one's living, but she
had kept her courage, refused to listen to evil counsel and always
managed to keep her name unsullied. She left the factory to work behind
the counter in a New York dry goods store. Then about a year ago she
drifted to New Haven and took the position of waitress at the restaurant
which the college boys patronized.

Robert Underwood was among the students who came almost every day. He
made love to her from the start, and one day attempted liberties which
she was prompt to resent in a way he did not relish. After that he let
her alone. She never liked the man. She knew him to be unprincipled as
well as vicious. One night he brought Howard Jeffries to the restaurant.
They seemed the closest of cronies and she was sorry to see what bad
influence the elder sophomore had over the young fr