"Mr. Hodder has brought us a new friend and neighbour, Sally,--Miss Kate
Marcy. She is to have a room near us, that we may see her often."

Hodder watched Miss Grower's procedure with a breathless interest.

"Why, Mrs. McQuillen has a room--across the street, you know, Mr.
Bentley."

Sally perched herself on the edge of the armchair and laid her hand
lightly on Kate Marcy's.

Even Sally Grover was powerless to prevent the inevitable, and the touch
of her hand seemed the signal for the release of the pent-up forces. The
worn body, the worn nerves, the weakened will gave way, and Kate Marcy
burst into a paroxysm of weeping that gradually became automatic,
convulsive, like a child's. There was no damming this torrent, once
released. Kindness, disinterested friendship, was the one unbearable
thing.

"We must bring her upstairs," said Sally Grover, quietly, "she's going to
pieces."

Hodder helping, they fairly carried her up the flight, and laid her on
Sally Grover's own bed.

That afternoon she was taken to Mrs. McQuillen's.

The fiends are not easily cheated. And during the nights and days that
followed even Sally Grower, whose slight frame was tireless, whose
stoicism was amazing, came out of the sick room with a white face and