"You're a divil, Rance!" Mrs. Corbett repeated again. "But you ain't
goin' to do that blessed girl any harm--she's goin' to be saved from
you some way."

"Who'll do it, I wonder?" Rance seemed to triumph over her.

"There is One," said Maggie Corbett, solemnly, "who comes to help when
all other help fails."

"Who's that?" he asked, yawning.

Maggie Corbett held up her right hand.

"It is God!" she said slowly. Rance laughed indulgently. "A myth--a
name--a superstition," he sneered; "there is no God any more."

"There is a God," she said, slowly and reverently, for she was Maggie
Murphy now, back to the Army days when God walked with her day by day,
"and He can hear a mother's prayer, and though I was never a mother
after the flesh, I am a mother now to that poor girl in the place of
the one that's gone, and I'm askin' Him to save her, and I've got me
answer. He will do it."

There was a gleam in her eyes and a white glow in her face that made
Rance Belmont for one brief moment tremble, but he lighted another
cigarette and with a bow of exaggerated politeness left the room.

The days that followed were anxious ones for Mrs. Corbett. Many
stoppers sat at her table as the Christmas season drew near, and many
times she heard allusions to her young neighbor which filled her with