r the consolation, she need have had no fear of being
recognized, so distorted were all her features by the frightful
paroxysms of grief that swept and ravaged her body that night.
She fainted again when they led her out to put her in the wagon.

She fainted a third time when she heard her name--"Queenie
Brown"--bellowed out by the court officer. They shook her into
consciousness, led her to the court-room. She was conscious of
a stifling heat, of a curious crowd staring at her with eyes
which seemed to bore red hot holes into her flesh. As she
stood before the judge, with head limp upon her bosom, she
heard in her ear a rough voice bawling, "You're discharged.
The judge says don't come here again." And she was pushed
through an iron gate. She walked unsteadily up the aisle,
between two masses of those burning-eyed human monsters. She
felt the cold outside air like a vast drench of icy water flung
upon her. If it had been raining, she might have gone toward
the river. But than that day New York had never been more
radiantly the City of the Sun. How she got home she never
knew, but late in the afternoon she realized that she was in
her own room.

Hour after hour she lay upon the bed, body and mind inert.
Helpless--no escape--no courage to live--yet no wish to die.
How much longer would it last? Surely the waking from this
dream must come soon.

About noon the next day Freddie came. "I let you off easy,"
said he, sitting on the bed upon which she was lying dressed as
when she came in the day before. "Have you been drinking again?"

"No," she muttered.

"Well--don't. Next time, a week on the Island. . . . Did you hear?"

"Yes."

"Don't turn me against you. I'd hate to have to make an awful
example of you."

"I must drink," she repeated in the same stolid way.

He abruptly but without shock lifted her to a sitting position.
His arm held her body up; her head was thrown back and her face
was looking calmly at him. She realized that he had been
drinking--drinking hard. Her eyes met his terrible eyes
without flinching. He kissed her full upon the lips. With her
open palm she struck him across the cheek, bringing the red
fierily to its smooth fair surface. The devil leaped into his
eyes, the devil of cruelty and lust. He smiled softly and
wickedly. "I see you've forgotten the lesson I gave you three
months ago. You've got to be taught to be afraid all over again."

"I _am_ not afraid," s