fend Billy in that way again, she would have borrowed ferry fare
from Maggie Donahue and journeyed to San Francisco to sell some of
her personal pretties. As it was, with bread and potatoes and salted
sardines in the house, she went out at the afternoon low tide and dug
clams for a chowder. Also, she gathered a load of driftwood, and it was
nine in the evening when she emerged from the marsh, on her shoulder a
bundle of wood and a short-handled spade, in her free hand the pail
of clams. She sought the darker side of the street at the corner and
hurried across the zone of electric light to avoid detection by the
neighbors. But a woman came toward her, looked sharply and stopped in
front of her. It was Mary.

"My God, Saxon!" she exclaimed. "Is it as bad as this?"

Saxon looked at her old friend curiously, with a swift glance that
sketched all the tragedy. Mary was thinner, though there was more color
in her cheeks--color of which Saxon had her doubts. Mary's bright eyes
were handsomer, larger--too large, too feverish bright, too restless.
She was well dressed--too well dressed; and she was suffering from
nerves. She turned her head apprehensively to glance into the darkness
behind her.

"My God!" Saxon breathed. "And you..." She shut her lips, then began
anew. "Come along to the house," she said.

"If you're ashamed to be seen with me--" Mary blurted, with one of her
old quick angers.

"No, no," Saxon disclaimed. "It's the driftwood and the clams. I don't
want the neighbors to know. Come along."

"No; I can't, Saxon. I'd like to, but I can't. I've got to catch the
next train to F'risco. I've ben waitin' around. I knocked at your back
door. But the house was dark. Billy's still in, ain't he?"

"Yes, he gets out to-morrow."

"I read about it in the papers," Mary went on hurriedly, looking behind
her. "I was in Stockton when it happened." She turned upon Saxon almost
savagely. "You don't blame me, do you? I just couldn't go back to work
after bein' married. I was sick of work. Played out, I guess, an' no
good anyway. But if you only knew how I hated the laundry even before I
got married. It's a dirty world. You don't dream. Saxon, honest to God,
you could never guess a hundredth part of its dirtiness. Oh, I wish I
was dead, I wish I was dead an' out of it all. Listen--no, I can't now.
There's the down train puffin' at Adeline. I'll have to run for it. Can
I come--"

"Aw, get a move on, can't you?" a man's voice i