"I hate it," she remarked calmly, without any show of passion. "It takes a
little of one's life every day, and leaves you a little more dead."

They walked in silence for a few minutes, and then Mrs. Preston suddenly
stopped.

"Why do you come?" she exclaimed. "Why do you want to know? It can do no
good,--I know it can do no good, and it is worse to have any
one--_you_--know the hateful thing. I want to crush it in myself,
never to tell, no,--no one," she stopped incoherently.

"I shall go," the doctor replied calmly, compassionately. "And it is best
to tell."

Her rebellious face came back to its wonted repose.

"Yes, I suppose I make it worse. It is best to tell--sometime."




CHAPTER VII


As they proceeded, more briskly now, she talked of her life in the Chicago
schools. She had taken the work when nothing else offered in the day of her
calamity. She described the struggle for appointment. If it had not been
for her father's old friend, a dentist, she would never have succeeded in
entering the system. A woman, she explained, must be a Roman Catholic, or
have some influence with the Board, to get an appointment. Qualifications?