Jimmie Dale crossed to the boy, looked inside the other room--and his
lip twitched queerly, as the sight sent a quick, hurt throb through his
heart. A young woman, younger than the boy, lay on a tumble-down bed, a
rag of clothing over her--her face with a deathlike pallor upon it, as
she lay in what appeared to be a stupor. She was ill, critically ill;
it needed no trained eye to discern a fact all too apparent to the most
casual observer. The squalor, the glaring poverty here, was even more
pitifully in evidence than in the other room--only here upon a chair
beside the bed was a cluster of medicine bottles and a little heap of
fruit.

Jimmie Dale drew back silently as the boy closed the door.

Hagan walked to the table and picked up his hat.

"I'm--I'm ready," he said brokenly. "Let's go."

"Just a minute," said Jimmie Dale. "Tell us about it."

"Twon't take long," said Hagan, trying to smile. "She's my wife. The
sickness took all we had. I--I kinder got behind in the rent and things.
They were going to fire us out of here--to-morrow. And there wasn't any
money for the medicine, and--and the things she had to have. Maybe you
wouldn't have done it--but I did. I couldn't see her dying there for the
want of something a little money'd buy--and--and I couldn't"--he caught
his voice in a little sob--"I couldn't see her thrown out on the street
like that."

"And so," said Jimmie Dale, "instead of putting old Isaac's cash in