ith another cry.

"Oh, God help me!" she cried, "God help _us_!"

Silently, but with a curious persistence, the child clung to the man's
trouser leg. With an oath he looked back again over his shoulder.

"Leave go of me," he mouthed. "Leave go o' me--y' little brat! 'r I'll--"

And "Let go of him, Lily," sobbed Rose-Marie, forgetting that the child
could not hear. "Let go of him, or he'll hurt you!"

The child lifted her sightless blue eyes wistfully to the faces above
her--the faces that she could not see. And she clung the closer.

Jim was swearing, steadily--swearing with a dogged, horrible regularity.
Of a sudden he raised his heavy foot and kicked viciously at the child
who clung so tenaciously to his other leg. Rose-Marie, powerless to help,
closed her eyes--and opened them again almost spasmodically.

"You brute," she screamed, "_you utter brute_!"

Lily, who had never, in all of her broken little life, felt an unkind
touch, wavered, as the man's boot touched her slight body. Her sightless
eyes clouded, all at once, with tears. And then, with a sudden piercing
shriek, she crumpled up--in a white little heap--upon the floor.

XVIII

AND A MIRACLE

For a moment Rose-Marie was stunned by the child's unexpected cry. She
hung speechless, filled with wonderment, in Jim's arms. And then, with a
wrench, she was free--was running across the floor to the little huddled
bundle that was Lily.

"You beast," she flung back, over her shoulder, as she ran. "You beast!
You've killed her!"

Jim did not attempt to follow--or to answer. He had wheeled about, and
his face was very pale.

"God!" he said, in a tense whisper, "_God_!" It was the first time that
the word, upon his lips, was neither mocking nor profane.

Rose-Marie, with tender hands, gathered the child up from the hard floor.
She was not thinking of the miracle that had taken place--she was not
thinking of the sound that had come, so unexpectedly, from dumb lips. She
only knew that the child was unconscious, perhaps dying. Her trembling
fingers felt of the slim wrist; felt almost with apprehension. She was
surprised to feel that the pulse was still beating, though faintly.

"Get somebody," she said, tersely, to Jim. "Get somebody who
knows--something!"

Jim's face was still the colour of ashes. He did not stir--did not seem
to have the power to stir.

"Did yer hear her?" he mouthed thickly. "She _yelled_. I heard her. Did
yer hear--"

Rose