And almost as a sequel to this I thought of two sad cases that had come
close to my notice as fellow boarders.

I was sitting alone one night by the gas stove in the parlour. The
matron had gone out and left me to "answer the door." The bell rang and
I opened cautiously, for the wind was howling and driving the snow and
sleet about on the winter air. A young girl came in; she was seeking a
lodging. Her skirts and shoes were heavy with water. She took off her
things slowly in a dazed manner. Her short, quick breathing showed how
excited she was. When she spoke at last her voice sounded hollow, her
eyes moved about restlessly. She stopped abruptly now and then and
contracted her brows as though in an appeal for merciful tears; then she
continued in the same broken, husky voice:

"I suppose I'm not the only one in trouble. I've thought a thousand
times over that I would kill myself. I suppose I loved him--but I _hate_
him now."

These two sentences, recurring, were the story's all.

The impotence of rebellion, a sense of outrage at being abandoned, the
instinctive appeal for protection as a right, the injustice of being
left solely to bear the burden of responsibility which so long as it was
pleasure had been shared--these were the thoughts and feelings breeding
hatred.

She had spent the day in a fruitless search for her lover. She had been
to his boss and to his rooms. He had paid his debts and gone, nobody
knew where. She was pretty, vain, homeless; alone to bear the