d at the lights farther down the
street. "They said a good deal about me and him that wasn't true."
There was a pause, and then she looked at Bronson again. "I told him
he ought to stop coming to see me, and to make it up with his wife,
but he said he liked me best. I couldn't help his saying that, could
I, if he did? Then he--then this come," she nodded to the jail, "and
they blamed _me_ for it. They said that I stood in with the
bank-robbers, and was working with them; they said they used me for to
get him to help them." She lifted her face to the boy and the man, and
they saw that her eyes were wet and that her face was quivering.
"That's likely, isn't it?" she demanded, with a sob. She stood for a
moment looking at the great iron gate, and then at the clock-face
glowing dully through the falling snow: it showed a quarter to twelve.
"When he was put away," she went on, sadly, "I started in to wait for
him, and to save something against his coming out. I only got three
dollars a week and my keep, but I had saved one hundred and thirty
dollars up to last April, and then I took sick, and it all went to the
doctor and for medicines. I didn't want to spend it that way, but I
couldn't die and not see him. Sometimes I thought it would be better
if I did die and save the money for him, and then there wouldn't be
any more trouble, anyway. But I couldn't make up my mind to do it. I
did go without taking medicines they laid out for me for three days;
but I had to live--I just _had_ to. Sometimes I think I ought to have
given up, and not tried to get well. What do you think?"

Bronson shook his head, and cleared his throat as if he were going to
speak, but said nothing. Gallegher was looking up at the girl with
large, open eyes. Bronson wondered if any woman would ever love him as
much as that, or if he would ever love any woman so. It made him feel
lonesome, and he shook his head. "Well?" he said, impatiently.

"Well, that's all; that's how it is," she said. "She's been living on
there at Tacony with her mother. She kept seeing as many men as
before, and kept getting pitied all the time; everybody was so sorry
for her. When he was took so bad that time a year ago with his lungs,
they said in Tacony that if he died she'd marry Charley Oakes, the
conductor. He's always going to see her. Them that knew her knew me,
and I got word about how Henry was getting on. I couldn't see him,
because she told lies about me to the warden, and