ree of them
proposed marriage to me. They no doubt wanted to 'save' me, and thought
I was a prostitute. I did not care to disabuse them on the subject: in
fact I don't know whether I was what they called me or not.

"This life lasted only two or three months, but it seems like so many
years to me. At the end of that time Terry's work was over, and we left
down town and roomed with a respectable radical family. My health had
broken down. I weighed only a hundred pounds, although three months
earlier I had weighed one hundred and forty. My beautiful, healthy body
had wasted away. Ah! how proud I used to be of this body of mine! how I
used to glory in the vigorous, shapely limbs, the well-moulded breasts
and throat. But all this passed away before my youth had passed away."

Marie here pathetically omits to state the immediate cause of her ill
health--a long and terrible experience in the hospital, the result of
her excesses, during which time Terry was the only one to care for her,
from which place she came broken in health, thin and pale, with large,
dark, sad eyes, looking as she did when I first met her.

CHAPTER VIII

_The Rogues' Gallery_

"My terrible experiences during these months," continued Marie, "had at
least the advantage of bringing me nearer to him who was and is the
inspirer of whatever is worthy or good in me. It helped me to appreciate
him, and surely everything I suffered, everything I may still suffer, is
not too much to pay for that. He has made for me an ideal, and, without
that, life is but a sorry, sorry thing. During those wild months I, of
course, thought little of those things, those wonderful new things which
I had heard of from him, but now, when we were living quietly with our
anarchist friends, and the surroundings were in harmony with the mood
for thought, my interest awakened. I read a great deal and listened
attentively to the talk of the people around me, and slowly my ideas
became more and more clear.

"It took a long time for me to learn, to really understand what the
others were interested in. I did not dare to ask Terry too many
questions, especially there, where everybody admired him and looked up
to him so. A new shyness came over me when I began to see him in the
light of a philosopher and a poet. He seemed so far above me and I felt
myself so small and unworthy. But it was not long before I really began
to feel a strong interest in all that was said, in all these so