e
soul I have left."

"You sprung the trap," he told her, bitterly.

But his wife had seen a way to freedom and clutched at it with desperate
persistence.

"Listen! I want to talk to you. Come with me for a minute."

"Come? Why?"

"Never mind. Oh, it's all right. You owe me something, for I still have
your name. Do this for me, please! It's only a step."

He yielded to her imploring eyes and followed grudgingly down the back
stairs and into the night, wondering the while at his own weakness. She
led the way, bareheaded, heedless of the cold. They were in that
ill-favored district he had penetrated earlier in the day, but if it had
been offensive then it was doubly so now, with its muffled sounds of
debauchery and wickedness. She paused finally, fumbling at the door of
one miserable structure, whereupon he growled:

"You live here? You're worse than--"

"'Sh-h!" She laid a finger on her lips as she let him in and lit a lamp,
then she beckoned him toward the single rear room, shading the light
with one hand and inviting him silently to peer over her shoulder.

The surprise of what he saw struck McGill dumb, for there in a crib lay
the tiny lass who had befriended him that afternoon. Her lips were
pouting sweetly, her face was flushed with dreams, one plump little arm
was outside the covers, and just below the doubled fist McGill saw the
deep dimpled bracelet of babyhood. Her presence made of these squalid
surroundings a place of purity; the room became suddenly a shrine.

"The son-of-a-gun!" said McGill, inanely, then his face darkened once
more. "I know her," he announced, grimly. "What are _you_ doing with
that kid--in this hell-hole?"

From the alleyways near by came a burst of ribaldry, but the woman's
face was shining when she answered:

"Why, she's mine--my baby. We have no other home."

He did not--could not--speak, so she said, simply:

"Now you see why I must leave Barclay, and--all this."

"_Your_ baby!" McGill's eyes dropped to the index finger of his right
hand, then he touched his lips curiously.

"Barclay won't let me run straight. I've always wanted to, and now I
must, for the baby's sake." When this brought no response she continued,
with growing intensity, but in a lowered tone. "She'll begin to
understand things before long. She'll hear about him--and me. Then what?
She'll think for herself, and she'll never forget a thing like that,
never. How can she grow up to be good if she learns