self. That was when he struck me.... Oh, you don't know what I'm
talking about yet!... I tried to get work at a milliner's, but I was so
sick I couldn't stay. I was sick all the time. I wisht I'd ha' died, Ann
Eliza."

"No, no, Evelina."

"Yes, I do. It kept getting worse and worse. We pawned the furniture,
and they turned us out because we couldn't pay the rent; and so then we
went to board with Mrs. Hochmuller."

Ann Eliza pressed her closer to dissemble her own tremor. "Mrs.
Hochmuller?"

"Didn't you know she was out there? She moved out a month after we did.
She wasn't bad to me, and I think she tried to keep him straight--but
Linda--"

"Linda--?"

"Well, when I kep' getting worse, and he was always off, for days at a
time, the doctor had me sent to a hospital."

"A hospital? Sister--sister!"

"It was better than being with him; and the doctors were real kind to
me. After the baby was born I was very sick and had to stay there a good
while. And one day when I was laying there Mrs. Hochmuller came in as
white as a sheet, and told me him and Linda had gone off together and
taken all her money. That's the last I ever saw of him." She broke off
with a laugh and began to cough again.

Ann Eliza tried to persuade her to lie down and sleep, but the rest of
her story had to be told before she could be soothed into consent. After
the news of Ramy's flight she had had brain fever, and had been sent
to another hospital where she stayed a long time--how long she couldn't
remember. Dates and days meant nothing to her in the shapeless ruin of
her life. When she left the hospital she found that Mrs. Hochmuller had
gone too. She was penniless, and had no one to turn to. A lady visitor
at the hospital was kind, and found her a place where she did housework;
but she was so weak they couldn't keep her. Then she got a job as
waitress in a down-town lunch-room, but one day she fainted while she
was handing a dish, and that evening when they paid her they told her
she needn't come again.

"After that I begged in the streets"--(Ann Eliza's grasp again grew
tight)--"and one afternoon last week, when the matinees was coming out,
I met a man with a pleasant face, something like Mr. Hawkins, and he
stopped and asked me what the trouble was. I told him if he'd give me
five dollars I'd have money enough to buy a ticket back to New York, and
he took a good look at me and said, well, if that was what I wanted he'd
go straight to the