eyes upon her. She cast down
the rug she carried upon the others in their bundle and stood over
them.

"I'll take care of them," she said. "They will be safe with me. Do
you understand? Me!" She touched herself upon her white-clad bosom
with one hand, pointing with the other to the rugs.

The man gazed at her mournfully, resignedly. Martyrdom was the daily
bread of his race; oppression had been his apprenticeship to life. It
was in the order of things as he knew it that those who had power
over him should plunder him; but, facing the earnest girl, with her
frank and kindly eyes, some glimmer of hope lighted in his
abjectness. He sighed and let his head fall forward in a feeble
motion of acquiescence, and the big men who held him took him out and
down the stairs to the waiting ambulance.

"Well!" said Selby, as the door closed behind the doctor. "Who
wouldn't sell a farm and be a consul. We'd ought to have the place
disinfected. What do you reckon to do with that junk, Miss Pilgrim?"

Miss Pilgrim was readjusting the thong that had bound the rugs
together.

"Oh, I'll take them home in a droschky, Mr. Selby," she said. "I've
got a cupboard in my rooms where they can stay till the poor man gets
out of hospital."

"All right," snarled Selby. "It's your troubles." He turned away, but
stopped upon a sudden thought. "What about letting Baruch take that
rug now?" he asked. "He's offered a price and he can pay it to you."

"Certainly," agreed Mr. Baruch. "I can pay the cash to Miss Pilgrim
and she can pay it to the poor man. He will perhaps be glad to have
some cash at once when he comes out."

Miss Pilgrim, kneeling beside the pack of rugs, looked doubtfully
from one to the other. Mr. Baruch returned her gaze benignly. Selby,
as always, had the affronted air of one who is prepared to be refused
the most just and moderate demand.

"Why," she began hesitatingly, "I suppose-" Then Selby had to strike
in.

"Aren't worrying because you said you'd look after the stuff
yourself, are you?" he jeered.

Mr. Baruch's expression did not alter by so much as a twitch; there
was no outward index of his impulse to smite the blundering man
across the mouth.

The hesitancy upon Miss Pilgrim's face dissolved in an instant and
she positively brightened.

"Of course," she said happily. "What can I have been thinking of?
When the poor man comes out Mr. Baruch can make his own bargain with
him; but till then I promised!"

Selby,