ared. And then, all at once, she turned swiftly--just as
swiftly as the boy had--and started back across the park toward the
Settlement House.

"I won't tell them!" she was saying over and over in her heart, as she
went, "I won't tell them! They wouldn't let me go, if I did.... I won't
tell them!"

The kitten was still held tight in her arms. It rested, quite
contentedly, against her blue coat. Perhaps it knew that there was a
warm, friendly place--even for little frightened animals--in the
Settlement House.

VI

"THERE'S NO PLACE--"

When Rose-Marie paused in front of the tenement, at three o'clock on the
following afternoon, she felt like a naughty little girl who is playing
truant from school. When she remembered the way that she had avoided the
Superintendent's almost direct questions, she blushed with an inward
sense of shame. But when she thought of the Young Doctor's offer to go
with her--"wherever she was going"--she threw back her head with a
defiant little gesture. She knew well that the Young Doctor was sorry for
yesterday's quarrel--she knew that a night beside the dying Mrs. Celleni,
and the wails of the Cohen baby, had temporarily softened his viewpoint
upon life. And yet--he had said that they were soulless--these people
that she had come to help! He would have condemned Bennie Volsky from the
first--but she had detected the glimmerings of something fine in the
child! No--despite his more tolerant attitude--she knew that, underneath,
his convictions were unchanged. She was glad that she had gone out upon
her adventure alone.

With a heart that throbbed in quick staccato beats, she mounted the steps
of the tenement. Little dark-eyed children moved away from her,
apparently on every side, but somehow she scarcely noticed them. The
doorway yawned, like an open mouth, in front of her--and she could think
of nothing else. As she went over the dark threshold she remembered
stories that she had read about people who go in at tenement doorways and
are never seen again. Every one has read such stories in the daily
newspapers--and perhaps some of them are true!

A faint light flickered in through the doorway. It made the ascent of the
first flight of creaking stairs quite easy. At least Rose-Marie could
step aside from the piles of rubbish and avoid the rickety places. She
wondered, as she went up, her fingers gingerly touching the dirty
hand-rail, how people could exist under such wretched conditi