s car, which had arrived on the scene with an
amazing, not to say, suspicious promptness.

"I don't," Nancy said, "in the least; but I don't _really_ believe in
the things I believe in any more."

"Poor Nancy!" Dick said.

"I've had some trouble, Dick. I'm shaken all out of my poise. I can't
seem to get my universe straight again."

"I'm sorry for that," he said. "Anything I can do?"

"Stand by; that's all, I guess."

"You couldn't tell me a little more about it, could you?"

"No, I couldn't, Dick."

"I'm not even to guess?"

"You couldn't guess. It's the kind of thing that's entirely outside
of--of the probabilities. I think it's outside of the range of your
understanding, Dick. I don't think you know that there is exactly that
kind of trouble in the world."

"And you think you'd better not enlighten me?"

"I couldn't, Dick, even if I wanted to. Funny you happened to be in
this part of town to-night just when I really needed you."

He smiled. Every night of his life he followed her, watching over her,
dodging down dark alley ways, waiting at squalid entrances until she
came out. To-night he had ventured to speak to her only because he
knew her to be in need of actual physical assistance.

"Awfully glad to be anywhere around when you need me," he said; "still
I hope you don't mind my suggesting that this is a Gehenna of a place
for either of us to be in."

"Haven't you any feeling for the downtrodden?" Nancy asked, with a
faint reflection of what Billy referred to as her "older and better
manner."

"I'm downtrodden myself, Nancy."

She smiled in her turn.

"You don't look very downtrodden to me," she said. "_You've_ got
everything to live for."

"Everything?"

"Well, money and freedom and--and--"

"Money is the only thing I've got that you haven't, and that doesn't
mean much unless you can share it with the person you love."

"No, it doesn't, does it?" Nancy said unexpectedly. "What's that scar
on your forehead?"

"That's a scratch I got."

"How?"

"Shaving or fighting, or something like that."

"_Was_ it fighting, Dick?"

"Yes."

"Who were you fighting with?"

"I wasn't fighting. I was assaulting and battering."

"Why, Dick!"

"If it's any satisfaction to you to know it I made one grand job of
it."

"Why should it be any satisfaction to me?"

"I don't know."

"Why, Dick!" Nancy said again. "I didn't know you had any of that kind
of brutality in you."

"Didn't you?"

"