r the child? It--it suffers."

"Yes," responded the girl in a hoarse voice. "I suppose it does--it's
hungry!"

Instinctively Von Barwig put his hand in his pocket, but the girl shook
her head.

"Not that, not that!" she said quickly. "I have enough to eat, but--"
She looked at him more closely, looked into his eyes, and felt rather
than saw that it was not mere idle curiosity that was prompting his
question.

"It's very kind of you to take an interest in a stranger. I'm feeding
the child myself," she said after a pause; "but I can't now, I can't!"
The girl tried hard to keep back her tears. "It would poison her if I
did! I dare not until I feel different. I'm full of hate and misery
and hell, and I dare not feed it to the child. Mother's milk is poison
when the mother feels as I do!" she cried, striking her breast in her
misery.

The old man took her hand. "Don't, please don't," he said gently;
"unless you want the child to die. Compose yourself, my dear girl, and
tell me what has happened. I'm a stranger to you, yes, but misery
brings us together and makes us old friends." He seated himself beside
her. "Tell me; I am old enough to be your father! You have none, eh?"

"Yes," said the girl, "I have, but--" she broke off suddenly. Then she
said, "My husband has left me, and the child not eight weeks old.
Isn't that hard luck? Left me--for another! Oh, I know it's an old
story, but it's new enough to me. God knows it's new enough to me!"

Von Barwig comforted her as well as he could, and when the girl quieted
down she told him her story. It was conventional enough. She had run
away from home and married a young fellow she met in a Harlem dance
hall. She knew nothing of his people or of his early life. She simply
married him, and now he had deserted her after the arrival of her
child. There was nothing uncommon or strange either in her story or
her way of telling it. Von Barwig had heard such stories hundreds of
times, but to him the pathos of the situation lay in the inability of
the young mother to feed the crying child owing to her distracted
mental condition. Further, the fact that she was sufficiently
acquainted with the laws of physiology to realise this truth showed Von
Barwig that the girl had received a better education than most of her
class.

"Have you money?" he asked her.

"A little," the girl replied listlessly. "Oh, God, if the child would
only stop crying," she said as s