I will always like to think of you as his mother." I said
to her quick so she would not know how bad I felt, "What must I do to
give you Billy?" And she said, "We will go to the lawyer's and he will
make out the papers." So we went and I swore that I was his mother and
that his father was dead, and I give Billy to Mrs. Smith and when he
come back he was her little boy. Oh, Kate, I can't write more, my heart
is nearly broke.

_Nan_.

XXIV

_Dear Kate_:

Billy is gone. He sailed away at ten o'clock this morning. I went over
to the boat with them and I didn't say nothing. I don't think even Mrs.
Smith knew how bad I felt. It seemed when I saw that boat pulling out
that it was taking all the world with it, and as I stood on the dock
watching Billy dressed in his little blue suit, his pretty gold curls
all around his face, I just wanted to die. The Smiths and Billy are the
only good things I ever had in my life, and it seemed at the last I
_couldn't_ let them go. Even the morning of the sailing Mrs. Smith
wanted me to go with them, and I felt at first I _had_ to go, that I
couldn't stay on here and look all the days and nights in the face and
keep on living. Then I knew it would not be playing the game. You do
need me, don't you, Kate? You won't be dead sore about Billy, will you,
and some day you will understand?

I have just walked the streets all day, I didn't want to go up to the
room, and I am writing this in Kelly's restaurant. I begin to work
to-morrow night at the Cafe Boulevard, and perhaps when I am dancing I
won't remember. You will be out in a few weeks and we will be together
and happy again. You won't be sore at me, say you won't, Kate?

Oh, Kate, I wish things had been different, so we could have kept him.
It is Hell to be crooked, ain't it?

Yours,
_Nan_.

XXV

_Dear Kate_:

Billy is back! I don't know hardly how I can tell you all about it, it
don't seem real to me yet. Two days out from New York the ship that they
was on run into another ship in a fog and everybody was saved except
eighteen people, and the Smiths was lost. An officer saw Billy and threw
him in a boat and the Smiths was put in another boat that was swamped. I
read it in the papers first, and it said the Smiths was drowned and of
course I thought Billy was with them, and I was near crazy because I
thought it was all my fault. If I had not of given him to the Smiths, he
would be alive still. I went down to