frame house itself. A secondhand-clothes store occupied a portion
of the ground floor, and housed the proprietor and his family as well,
permitting the rooms on the second floor to be "rented out"; the garret
above was the abode of Gypsy Nan.

There was a separate entrance, apart from that into the
secondhand-clothes store, and she pushed this door open and stepped
forward into an absolutely black and musty-smelling hallway. By feeling
with her hands along the wall she reached the stairs and began to make
her way upward. She had found Gypsy Nan last night huddled in the lower
doorway, and apparently in a condition that was very much the worse
for wear. She had stopped and helped the woman upstairs to her garret,
whereupon Gypsy Nan, in language far more fervent than elegant, had
ordered her to begone, and had slammed the door in her face.

Rhoda Gray smiled a little wearily, as, on the second floor now, she
groped her way to the rear, and began to mount a short, ladder-like
flight of steps to the attic. Gypsy Nan's lack of cordiality did not
absolve her, Rhoda Gray, from coming back to-night to see how the woman
was--to crowd one more visit on her already over-expanded list. She had
never had any personal knowledge of Gypsy Nan before, but, in a sense,
the woman was no stranger to her. Gypsy Nan was a character known
far and wide in the under-world as one possessing an insatiable and
unquenchable thirst. As to who she was, or what she was, or where she
got her money for the gin she bought, it was not in the ethics of
the Bad Lands to inquire. She was just Gypsy Nan. So that she did not
obtrude herself too obviously upon their notice, the police suffered
her; so that she gave the underworld no reason for complaint, the
underworld accepted her at face value as one of its own!

There was no hallway here at the head of the ladder-like stairs, just a
sort of narrow platform in front of the attic door. Rhoda Gray, groping
out with her hands again, felt for the door, and knocked softly upon it.
There was no answer. She knocked again. Still receiving no reply, she
tried the door, found it unlocked, and, opening it, stood for an instant
on the threshold. A lamp, almost empty, ill-trimmed and smoking badly,
stood on a chair beside a cheap iron bed; it threw a dull, yellow glow
about its immediate vicinity, and threw the remainder of the garret into
deep, impenetrable shadows; but also it disclosed the motionless form of
a woman