them. "Tell me about it!" he
commanded.

She shook her head. "I couldn't." To have told would have been
like tearing open closed and healed wounds. Also it would have
seemed whining--and she had utter contempt for whining. "I'll
answer any question, but I can't just go on and tell."

"You deliberately went and did--that?"

"Yes."

"Haven't you any excuse, any defense?"

She might have told him about Burlingham dying and the need of
money to save him. She might have told him about Etta--her
health going--her mind made up to take to the streets, with no
one to look after her. She might have made it all a moving and
a true tale--of self-sacrifice for the two people who had done
most for her. But it was not in her simple honest nature to try
to shift blame. So all she said was:

"No, Rod."

"And you didn't want to kill yourself first?"

"No. I wanted to live. I was dirty--and I wanted to be clean. I
was hungry--and I wanted food. I was cold--that was the worst.
I was cold, and I wanted to get warm. And--I had been
married--but I couldn't tell even you about that--except--after
a woman's been through what I went through then, nothing in life
has any real terror or horror for her."

He looked at her long. "I don't understand," he finally said.
"Come on. Let's go back to the hotel."

She walked beside him, making no attempt to break his gloomy
silence. They went up to their room and she sat on the lounge by
the window. He lit a cigarette and half sat, half lay, upon the
bed. After a long time he said with a bitter laugh, "And I was
so sure you were a good woman!"

"I don't feel bad," she ventured timidly. "Am I?"

"Do you mean to tell me," he cried, sitting up, "that you don't
think anything of those things?"

"Life can be so hard and cruel, can make one do so many----"

"But don't you realize that what you've done is the very worst
thing a woman can do?"

"No," said she. "I don't. . . . I'm sorry you didn't understand.
I thought you did--not the details, but in a general sort of
way. I didn't mean to deceive you. That would have seemed to me
much worse than anything I did."

"I might have known! I might have known!" he cried--rather
theatrically, though sincerely withal--for Mr. Spenser was a
diligent worker with the tools of the play-making trade. "I
learned who you were as soon as I got home the night I left you
in Carrolton. They had been telephoning about you to the
vill