body'd just left you a million dollars!"

Rose-Marie's face was flushed and radiant. Her eyes were deep
wells of joy.

"I have every reason in the world," she said softly, "to be happy!" And
she was too absorbed in her own thoughts to realize that a sudden cloud
had crept across the brightness of the Young Doctor's face.

XIII

ELLA MAKES A DECISION

And then the climax of Ella's life--the crash that Rose-Marie had been
expecting--happened. It happened when Ella came furiously into the Volsky
flat, early one afternoon, and--ignoring the little Lily, who sat
placidly on Rose-Marie's lap--hurried silently into her own room. Mrs.
Volsky, bending over the wash-tubs, straightened up as if she could
almost feel the electric quality of the air, as Ella passed her, but
Rose-Marie only held tighter to Lily--as if, somehow, the slim little
body gave her comfort.

"I wonder what's the matter?" she ventured, after a moment.

Mrs. Volsky, again bending over the wash-tubs, answered.

"Ella, she act so funny, lately," she told Rose-Marie, "an' there is some
feller; Bennie, he tell me that he have seen her wit' some feller! A rich
feller, maybe; maybe he puts Ella up to her funny business!"

There were sounds of activity from the inner room, as if clothing was
being torn down from hooks--as if heavy garments were being flung into
bags. Rose-Marie listened, apprehensively, to the sounds before she
spoke again.

"Perhaps I'd better go in and see what's the matter," she suggested.

Mrs. Volsky, looking back over her shoulder, gave a helpless little
shrug. "If you t'inks best," she said hopelessly. "But Ella--she not
never want to take any help..."

Only too well Rose-Marie knew what Mrs. Volsky meant by her twisted
sentence. Only too well she understood that Ella would never allow
herself to be biased by another's judgment,--that Ella would not allow
herself to be moved by another's plea. And yet she set Lily gently down
upon the floor and rose to her feet.

"I'll see what she's doing," she told Mrs. Volsky, and pushed open the
inner door.

Despite all of the time that she had spent in the Volsky flat,
Rose-Marie had never been past the front room with its tumbled heaps of
bedding, and its dirt. She was surprised to see that the inner room,
shared by Ella and Lily, was exquisitely neat, though tiny. There were
no windows--the only light came from a rusty gas fixture--but
Rose-Marie, after months in the slums, was