better than you think I do. You're not
wicked. The only thing is--"

"Go on. Hit me with it."

"You might go on and be very happy. And as for the--for his wife, it
won't do her any harm. It's only--if there are children."

"I know. I've thought of that. But I'm so crazy for children!"

"Exactly. So you should be. But when they come, and you cannot give
them a name--don't you see? I'm not preaching morality. God forbid that
I--But no happiness is built on a foundation of wrong. It's been tried
before, Tillie, and it doesn't pan out."

He was conscious of a feeling of failure when he left her at last. She
had acquiesced in what he said, knew he was right, and even promised
to talk to him again before making a decision one way or the other. But
against his abstractions of conduct and morality there was pleading in
Tillie the hungry mother-heart; law and creed and early training were
fighting against the strongest instinct of the race. It was a losing
battle.

CHAPTER XI

The hot August days dragged on. Merciless sunlight beat in through the
slatted shutters of ward windows. At night, from the roof to which the
nurses retired after prayers for a breath of air, lower surrounding
roofs were seen to be covered with sleepers. Children dozed precariously
on the edge of eternity; men and women sprawled in the grotesque
postures of sleep.

There was a sort of feverish irritability in the air. Even the nurses,
stoically unmindful of bodily discomfort, spoke curtly or not at all.
Miss Dana, in Sidney's ward, went down with a low fever, and for a day
or so Sidney and Miss Grange got along as best they could. Sidney worked
like two or more, performed marvels of bed-making, learned to give
alcohol baths for fever with the maximum of result and the minimum
of time, even made rounds with a member of the staff and came through
creditably.

Dr. Ed Wilson had sent a woman patient into the ward, and his visits
were the breath of life to the girl.

"How're they treating you?" he asked her, one day, abruptly.

"Very well."

"Look at me squarely. You're pretty and you're young. Some of them will
try to take it out of you. That's human nature. Has anyone tried it
yet?"

Sidney looked distressed.

"Positively, no. It's been hot, and of course it's troublesome to tell
me everything. I--I think they're all very kind."

He reached out a square, competent hand, and put it over hers.

"We miss you in the Street," he said.