nd a decent home. My husband worked for a
circus and shortly a performer caught his eye and he followed her
into the world when the circus moved on."

She sighed heavily.

"I merely set my teeth tightly together. I toiled like a galley
slave to gain a mere living for myself and daughter, but I was
stricken by an epidemic. When I came out of it, everything went to
the dogs, for my shop was sold to cover my debts. I was practically
turned out into the street without a penny. An unspeakable rage
seized me. I borrowed money wherever I could and together with my
child went to seek my husband. I found him living with a shopkeeper
in such comfort that he had forgotten all about us. I took him by
the neck and brought him back with us to Warsaw. . . . He staid with
me a whole year, bestowed another child upon me, and ran away again.
My daughter grew up, we took home sewing, and managed to make a
living somehow.

"Then after some years they brought back my husband stone-blind. I
gave him a nook in my home, for my children desired it. God was at
least merciful enough to take him away.

"Later, I married off my daughter to a peasant. One day about two
years ago, I was present at my daughter's name day party to which a
few relatives and friends had been invited. In the midst of it they
brought me a telegram from Suwalki asking me to come immediately,
for my son was very ill."

She paused for a moment, gazed blankly about the room and in a low
voice, filled with despair whispered on, lifting her pale face to
Janina's:

"He was already dead. . . . They were waiting for me to bury
him. . . ."

"Later they told me that he had fallen in love with a chorus girl
and killed himself for her! They showed her to me. She was the
vilest sort. And that was why he killed himself . . . .

"When I caught her in the street, I would have killed her, killed
her like a mad dog to avenge my wrong and anguish! . . ." Sowinska
shouted aloud, clenching her fists.

"Such is my life, such! I curse it every day, but cannot
forget . . . all that still burns here in my bosom . . . I am in the
theater, for it always seems to me that he will return, that he is
already dressing and will immediately appear on the stage . . ."

"My God, God! . . . Ah, it was not he that was to blame, but
she . . . you girls tear to pieces a mother's heart . . . I would
trample you all underfoot like so many worms, into the mud, into
poverty, so that you might agonize a