st draft.

"This is a story that two may tell,
I am the one, the other's in hell;
A story of passionate amorous fire,
With the glamor of love to attune the lyre.

She traveled the road at breakneck speed,
I opened the gates and saddled the steed;
"Ride free!" I cried as we dashed along.
Her sweet voice echoed a mocking song."

"'Fraid it doesn't always scan. They seldom do," apologized the author
of the verses.

Jeff rapped for order. "The sense of the meeting is that the blushing
poet will please not interrupt."

"Nights of the wildest revel and mirth,
Days of sorrow, remorse, and dearth,
A heaven of love and a hell of regret--
But there's always the woman to pay my debt.

'Sin,' says the preacher, 'shall be washed free,
The blood of the Lamb was shed for thee.'
Smugly I pass the sacred wine,
The woman in hell pays toll for mine.

'I am a pillar of Church and State,
She but the broken sport of Fate;
This is a story that two may tell,
I am the one, the other's in hell.'"

There was a moment's silence after Jeff had finished.

"What are you going to call your verses?" the nurse asked.

"I'll call them, 'She Pays.' That's the idea of it."

James was distinctly uneasy. There was positively something indecent
about this. He had an aversion to thinking about unpleasant things.
Every well-regulated mind ought to have. He would like to make a
protest, but he could not very well do that here. He promised himself
to let Alice Frome know as soon as they were alone what he thought about
her escapades into this world below the dead line.

He moved uncomfortably in his chair, and in doing so his gaze fell full
into the eyes of Sam Miller. The fat librarian was staring at him out
of a very white face. Before James could break the spell an unvoiced
question had been asked and answered.

Marchant was already riding the hobby that was religion to him. "Four
dollars a week. That's what she was getting. And her employer is worth
two millions. Think of it. All her youth to be sold for four dollars a
week. Just enough to keep body and soul together. And when she went to
the head of her department to ask for a raise he leered at her and said
a good looking girl like her could always find someone to take care of
her. Eight months she stuck it out, getting more ragge