es everywhere. He's giving me a little rope here ... he may be
waiting just to see how foolishly I use it. If you lie low until
to-morrow there will be less of a chance of things going wrong...
Besides, I owe this man something. He's fed and sheltered me. I'm
going to give him an even break. You would do that much, I'm sure."

She threw her arms suddenly about him. "Let me go down to him," she
whispered. "Perhaps I can persuade him. Maybe he'll go away, then, and
leave you in peace."

He stroked her hair. "No, I can't escape him now. Sooner or later he
would get me. You don't understand his power. All my life I've dodged
issues. But now I've run up against a stone wall. Either I scale it or
I break my neck in the attempt."

She shivered as if his touch filled her with an exquisite fear as she
drew away.

"I'm wondering if you are quite real," she said, wistfully. "Sometimes
I've thought of you as dead, and, again, it didn't seem possible...
Always at night upon the street I've really looked for you. In every
face that stared at me I had a hope that your eyes would answer
mine... I think I've looked for you all my life... It isn't always
necessity that drives a woman to the streets... Sometimes it is the
search for happiness... I suppose you can't understand that..."

"I understand anything you tell me _now_!"

She went over to him again and took his hand. "You _are_ real, aren't
you?... Because I couldn't bear it ... if I were to wake up and find
this all a dream... Nothing else matters ... nothing in my whole life
... but this moment. And when it is over nothing will ever matter ...
again."

He sat there stroking her hand foolishly. There were no words with
which to answer her... Presently she put her lips close to his and he
kissed her, and he knew then that only a woman who had tasted the
bitter wormwood of infamy could put such purity into a kiss. How many
times she must have hungered for this moment! How many times must she
have felt her soul rising to her lips only to find it betrayed!

He loved her for her words and he loved her for her silence. Once he
would have sat waiting passionately for her to defend herself. He
would have been tricked into believing that any course of action
_could_ be justified. But she brought no charges, she placed no blame,
she offered no excuse. "It isn't always necessity that drives a woman
to the streets!" It took a great soul to be that honest. She might
have reproached h