aps I can do more
for you in the morning."

"I can't. I'm a stranger. I haven't any friends in town."

"Well, well, the sergeant will see what can be done in the morning.
You've been up to some foolishness, I suppose, and you'd better tell
the whole story to the sergeant."

She soon entered the station house and was locked up in a narrow cell.
She heard the grating of the key in the lock with a sense of relief,
feeling that she had at least found a temporary place of refuge and
security. A hard board was the only couch it possessed, but the
thought of sleep did not enter her mind. Sitting down, she buried her
face in her hands and rocked back and forth in agony and distraction
until day dawned. At last, someone--she felt she could not raise her
eyes to his face--brought her some breakfast and coffee. She drank the
latter, but left the food untasted. Finally, she was led to the
sergeant's private room and told that she must give an account of
herself. "If you can't or won't tell a clear story," the officer
threatened, "you'll have to go before the justice in open court, and he
may commit you to prison. If you'll tell the truth now, it may be that
I can discharge you. You had no business to be wandering about the
streets like a vagrant or worse; but if you were a stranger or lost and
hadn't sense enough to go where you'd be cared for, I can let you go."

"Oh!" said Alida, again wringing her hands and looking at the officer
with eyes so full of misery and fear that he began to soften, "I don't
know where to go."

"Haven't you a friend or acquaintance in town?"

"Not one that I can go to!"

"Why don't you tell me your story? Then I'll know what to do, and
perhaps can help you. You don't look like a depraved woman."

"I'm not. God knows I'm not!"

"Well, my poor woman, I've got to act in view of what I know, not what
God knows."

"If I tell my story, will I have to give names?"

"No, not necessarily. It would be best, though."

"I can't do that, but I'll tell you the truth. I will swear it on the
Bible I married someone. A good minister married us. The man deceived
me. He was already married, and last night his wife came to my happy
home and proved before the man whom I thought my husband that I was no
wife at all. He couldn't, didn't deny it. Oh! Oh! Oh!" And she
again rocked back and forth in uncontrollable anguish. "That's all,"
she added brokenly. "I had no right to be near him or her