along. But this she noted with a dim sub-conscious faculty. The
real Minna, harassed, terrified, lashed with a thousand anxieties, kept
murmuring under her breath:

"What shall I do, what shall I do, oh, what shall I do, now?"

After an interminable walk, she gained Kearney Street, and held it till
the well-lighted, well-kept neighbourhood of the shopping district
gave place to the vice-crowded saloons and concert halls of the Barbary
Coast. She turned aside in avoidance of this, only to plunge into the
purlieus of Chinatown, whence only she emerged, panic-stricken and out
of breath, after a half hour of never-to-be-forgotten terrors, and at a
time when it had grown quite dark.

On the corner of California and Dupont streets, she stood a long moment,
pondering.

"I MUST do something," she said to herself. "I must do SOMETHING." She
was tired out by now, and the idea occurred to her to enter the Catholic
church in whose shadow she stood, and sit down and rest. This she did.
The evening service was just being concluded. But long after the priests
and altar boys had departed from the chancel, Minna still sat in the
dim, echoing interior, confronting her desperate situation as best she
might.

Two or three hours later, the sexton woke her. The church was being
closed; she must leave. Once more, chilled with the sharp night air,
numb with long sitting in the same attitude, still oppressed with
drowsiness, confused, frightened, Minna found herself on the pavement.
She began to be hungry, and, at length, yielding to the demand that
every moment grew more imperious, bought and eagerly devoured a
five-cent bag of fruit. Then, once more she took up the round of
walking.

At length, in an obscure street that branched from Kearney Street, near
the corner of the Plaza, she came upon an illuminated sign, bearing the
inscription, "Beds for the Night, 15 and 25 cents."

Fifteen cents! Could she afford it? It would leave her with only that
much more, that much between herself and a state of privation of which
she dared not think; and, besides, the forbidding look of the building
frightened her. It was dark, gloomy, dirty, a place suggestive of
obscure crimes and hidden terrors. For twenty minutes or half an hour,
she hesitated, walking twice and three times around the block. At last,
she made up her mind. Exhaustion such as she had never known, weighed
like lead upon her shoulders and dragged at her heels. She must sleep.
She c