s I am, without one
plea"--and as the carriage rolled past she leered at it, raising her
face so that Virginia saw it very close to her own. It was the face
of the girl who had kneeled sobbing, that night with Virginia
kneeling beside her and praying for her.

"Stop!" cried Virginia, motioning to the driver who was looking
around. The carriage stopped, and in a moment she was out and had
gone up to the girl and taken her by the arm. "Loreen!" she said,
and that was all. The girl looked into her face, and her own changed
into a look of utter horror. The girls in the carriage were smitten
into helpless astonishment. The saloon-keeper had come to the door
of the saloon and was standing there looking on with his hands on
his hips. And the Rectangle from its windows, its saloon steps, its
filthy sidewalk, gutter and roadway, paused, and with undisguised
wonder stared at the two girls. Over the scene the warm sun of
spring poured its mellow light. A faint breath of music from the
band-stand in the park floated into the Rectangle. The concert had
begun, and the fashion and wealth of Raymond were displaying
themselves up town on the boulevard.

When Virginia left the carriage and went up to Loreen she had no
definite idea as to what she would do or what the result of her
action would be. She simply saw a soul that had tasted of the joy of
a better life slipping back again into its old hell of shame and
death. And before she had touched the drunken girl's arm she had
asked only one question, "What would Jesus do?" That question was
becoming with her, as with many others, a habit of life.

She looked around now as she stood close by Loreen, and the whole
scene was cruelly vivid to her. She thought first of the girls in
the carriage.

"Drive on; don't wait for me. I am going to see my friend home," she
said calmly enough.

The girl with the red parasol seemed to gasp at the word "friend,"
when Virginia spoke it. She did not say anything.

The other girls seemed speechless.

"Go on. I cannot go back with you," said Virginia. The driver
started the horses slowly. One of the girls leaned a little out of
the carriage.

"Can't we--that is--do you want our help? Couldn't you--"

"No, no!" exclaimed Virginia. "You cannot be of any help to me."

The carriage moved on and Virginia was alone with her charge. She
looked up and around. Many faces in the crowd were sympathetic. They
were not all cruel or brutal. The Holy Spirit h