k. Directions were given
and statements made, and then the doctor came to the door where I was
standing. For a half-moment he looked me over, his near-sighted eyes
almost closing in their squint.

"I knew your father. A very unusual man." He held out his hand.
"You're like him, got his expression, and, I'm told, the same
disregard of what people think. That"--he jerked his thumb over his
shoulder--"is a side of life you've never seen before. It's a side
men make and women permit. Good morning." Before I could answer he
was gone.

Close to the cot Mrs. Mundy and Miss White were still standing. The
latter slipped her hand under the covering and drew out the hot-water
bag. "This has cooled," she said. "Where can I get hot water?"

Mrs. Mundy pointed to the bath-room, then turned, and together they
left the room. The girl on the cot was seemingly asleep.

As they went out the man, who was standing by the mantel, came toward
me. "I am David Guard," he said. "I have not thanked you for
letting me bring her in. Had there been anywhere else to take her, I
would not have brought her here. I met her at the other end of the
Square. We had been standing for some while, talking. There was no
place to which we could go to talk, and, fearing she would get too
cold, we had moved on. Last month she tried to take her life. This
morning she was telling me she could hold out no longer. There was
no way out of it but death."

"Who is she?"

Before he could answer I understood. Shivering, I turned away, then
I came back.

"Will you come to my sitting-room, Mr. Guard? Can we not talk as
human beings who are trying to find the right way to--to help wrong
things?"

CHAPTER XIV

A moment later we were up-stairs. "I don't know why I am so cold."
My hands, not yet steady, were held out to the leaping flames.
"Usually I love a snow-storm, but to-day--"

"They tell me you rarely have such weather as we have had of late.
Personally I like it, but to many it means anything but pleasure.
Is this the chair you prefer?"

At my nod he pushed a low rocker closer to the fire and placed a
foot-stool properly. Drawing up the wing-chair he sat down and
looked around the room. As the light fell on him I noticed the
olive, almost swarthy, coloring of his skin, his deep-sunk eyes
with their changing expressions of gravity and humor, of tolerance
and intolerance, and I knew he was the sort of man one could talk
to on