age. Beatrice turned
and fled out of the greasy, noisome atmosphere, down the wooden, uneven
steps, out into the ugly street. She turned toward the nearest elevated
as though by instinct, but when she came to the bottom of the stairs she
stopped short with a little groan. She knew very well that she had not
a nickel to pay the fare. Her pockets were empty. All day she had eaten
nothing, and her last coin had gone for the car which had brought her
back from Broadway. And here she was on the other side of New York, in
the region of low-class lodging houses, with the Bowery between her and
Broadway. She had neither the strength nor the courage to walk. With
a half-stifled sob she took off her one remaining ornament, a cheap
enameled brooch, and entered a pawnbroker's shop close to where she had
been standing.

"Will you give me something on this, please?" she asked, desperately.

A man who seemed to be sorting a pile of ready-made coats, paused in
his task for a moment, took the ornament into his hand, and threw it
contemptuously upon the counter.

"Not worth anything," he answered.

"But it must be worth something," Beatrice protested. "I only want a
very little."

Something in her voice compelled the man's attention. He looked at her
white face.

"What's the trouble?" he inquired.

"I must get up to Fifth Avenue somehow," she declared. "I can't walk and
I haven't a nickel."

He pushed the brooch back to her and threw a dime upon the counter.

"Well," he said, "you don't look fit to walk, and that's a fact, but the
brooch isn't worth entering up. There's a dime for you. Now git, please,
I'm busy."

Beatrice clutched the coin and, almost forgetting to thank him, found
her way up the iron stairs on to the platform of the elevated. Soon she
was seated in the train, rattling and shaking on its way through the
slums into the heart of the wonderful city. There was only one thing
left for her to try, a thing which she had had in her mind for days. Yet
she found herself, even now she was committed to it, thinking of
what lay before her with something like black horror. It was her last
resource, indeed. Strong though she was, she knew by many small
signs that her strength was almost at an end. The days and weeks of
disappointments, the long fruitless trudges from office to office, the
heart-sickness of constant refusals, poor food, the long fasts, had all
told their tale. She was attractive enough still. Her pallor se