e care!"

She was choking with excitement. Lily was afraid of nothing. But those
confounded ghosts: poor Ma, perhaps! And she quickly separated two fingers
wide behind her back, so as to be on the safe side and ward off ill-luck:

"Come with me, Glass-Eye; you go first!"

And Lily, in her night-dress, half-opened the door, looked out.

A thin woman, all in black, stood motionless. It was not Ma. Lily breathed
more freely:

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I want to speak to Miss Lily," said the woman in black. "I went to the
theater and they gave me your address. I came.... I suppose you don't
remember me, it's so long ago. Ave Maria, on the wire in Mexico?"

"Ave Maria! Come in," said Lily.

Ave Maria, whom she had sought for so long. She would know at last! Oh, if
it were true! God grant that it might be true! Lily, hardly recovered from
her fright, quivered at the thought. And she devoured Ave Maria with her
eyes. She recognized her, now that she knew: it was she indeed, but grown
old before her time, looking wretched, thin, hollow-eyed, a face all skin
and bone. And the two stood contemplating each other in silence.

"How pretty you've grown!" whispered Ave Maria timidly. "No one would take
you for a professional."

But a sudden fit of coughing brought scarlet patches to her pale cheeks.

"It catches me here," she said, pressing her hand to her chest. "It's
damp, sometimes, in the tent. And then half-naked on those trestles. The
work warms one, it's true. The other night I saw some one who knew you, a
gentleman. I should have liked to ask him more, but my brother struck him
in the face. I got my turn after. However, I wanted to see you. I went to
the Astrarium. I asked them."

"Go on," said Lily, who was burning to know, but did not want to show it.
"Glass-Eye, give me my dressing-gown. Go on, please!"

"I don't know that I dare," said Ave Maria, "now that I have seen you. You
are so much better-looking than I am. Are you still living with him?" she
asked, in a low voice, fixing two fiery eyes on Lily.

"No," said Lily, "I am living with nobody!"

"But they told me. I heard at Buenos Ayres ... the story of the whippings,
your running away with him...."

"What whippings? And I'm living with nobody!" retorted Lily, very
haughtily.

"But you have lived with him ... in Germany ... Trampy, you know."

"No," said Lily, "I was married, wasn't I, Glass-Eye?"

"But _I'm_ married to him!" Ave Maria broke