t a flesh-tint the stuff has!
Do you see, Mitchell?"

"I see."

He had stepped aside where the light fell boldest on the figure, looking
at it in silence. There was not one line of beauty or grace in it: a
nude woman's form, muscular, grown coarse with labor, the powerful limbs
instinct with some one poignant longing. One idea: there it was in the
tense, rigid muscles, the clutching hands, the wild, eager face, like
that of a starving wolf's. Kirby and Doctor May walked around it,
critical, curious. Mitchell stood aloof, silent. The figure touched him
strangely.

"Not badly done," said Doctor May, "Where did the fellow learn that
sweep of the muscles in the arm and hand? Look at them! They are
groping, do you see?--clutching: the peculiar action of a man dying of
thirst."

"They have ample facilities for studying anatomy," sneered Kirby,
glancing at the half-naked figures.

"Look," continued the Doctor, "at this bony wrist, and the strained
sinews of the instep! A working-woman,--the very type of her class."

"God forbid!" muttered Mitchell.

"Why?" demanded May, "What does the fellow intend by the figure? I
cannot catch the meaning."

"Ask him," said the other, dryly, "There he stands,"--pointing to Wolfe,
who stood with a group of men, leaning on his ash-rake.

The Doctor beckoned him with the affable smile which kind-hearted men
put on, when talking to these people.

"Mr. Mitchell has picked you out as the man who did this,--I'm sure I
don't know why. But what did you mean by it?"

"She be hungry."

Wolfe's eyes answered Mitchell, not the Doctor.

"Oh-h! But what a mistake you have made, my fine fellow! You have given
no sign of starvation to the body. It is strong,--terribly strong. It
has the mad, half-despairing gesture of drowning."

Wolfe stammered, glanced appealingly at Mitchell, who saw the soul of
the thing, he knew. But the cool, probing eyes were turned on himself
now,--mocking, cruel, relentless.

"Not hungry for meat," the furnace-tender said at last.

"What then? Whiskey?" jeered Kirby, with a coarse laugh.

Wolfe was silent a moment, thinking.

"I dunno," he said, with a bewildered look. "It mebbe. Summat to make
her live, I think,--like you. Whiskey ull do it, in a way."

The young man laughed again. Mitchell flashed a look of disgust
somewhere,--not at Wolfe.

"May," he broke out impatiently, "are you blind? Look at that woman's
face! It asks questions of God, and says, 'I