ent to the door and summoned into the room a woman whom
Monsieur Loches had noticed waiting there. She was verging on old age,
small, frail, and ill-nourished in appearance, poorly dressed, and yet
with a suggestion of refinement about her. She stood near the door,
twisting her hands together nervously, and shrinking from the gaze of
the strange gentleman. The doctor began in an angry voice. "Did I not
tell you to come and see me once every eight days? Is that not true?"

The woman answered, in a faint voice, "Yes, sir."

"Well," he exclaimed, "and how long has it been since you were here?"

"Three months, sir."

"Three months! And you believe that I can take care of you under such
conditions? I give you up! Do you understand? You discourage me, you
discourage me." There was a pause. Then, seeing the woman's suffering,
he began, in a gentler tone, "Come now, what is the reason that you
have not come? Didn't you know that you have a serious disease--most
serious?"

"Oh, yes, sir," replied the woman, "I know that very well--since my
husband died of it."

The doctor's voice bore once again its note of pity. "Your husband died
of it?"

"Yes, sir."

"He took no care of himself?"

"No, sir."

"And was not that a warning to you?"

"Doctor," the woman replied, "I would ask nothing better than to come as
often as you told me, but the cost is too great."

"How--what cost? You were coming to my free clinic."

"Yes, sir," replied the woman, "but that's during working hours, and
then it is a long way from home. There are so many sick people, and I
have to wait my turn, It is in the morning--sometimes I lose a whole
day--and then my employer is annoyed, and he threatens to turn me off.
It is things like that that keep people from coming, until they dare not
put it off any longer. Then, too, sir--" the woman stopped, hesitating.

"Well," demanded the doctor.

"Oh, nothing, sir," she stammered. "You have been too good to me
already."

"Go on," commanded the other. "Tell me."

"Well," murmured the woman, "I know I ought not to put on airs, but you
see I have not always been so poor. Before my husband's misfortune,
we were well fixed. So you see, I have a little pride. I have always
managed to take care of myself. I am not a woman of the streets, and to
stand around like that, with everybody else, to be obliged to tell
all one's miseries out loud before the world! I am wrong, I know it
perfectly well; I argue with