"I won't. Don't try to talk 'til you get hold of yourself," said Dan.

"But I'm chokin'! I can't breathe! Get the veil off!"

As Dan knelt above her, fumbling with the long veil, he noticed for the
first time that she was young, and that her bare neck between the collar
and the ripple of her black hair was very white and smooth. He bent down
and looked at her with a flash of recognition.

"Birdie!" he cried incredulously, "Birdie Smelts!"

Her heavy white lids fluttered wildly, and she started up in terror.

"Don't be scared!" he urged. "It's Dan Lewis from back home. How did you
ever come to be in this state?"

With a moan of despair she covered her face with her hands.

"I was up there on the bridge," Dan went on, almost apologetically. "I
saw you there, but I didn't know it was you. Then when you started down
to the water, I sorter thought--"

"You oughtn't 'a' stopped me," she wailed. "I been walkin' the
streets tryin' to get up my courage all day. I'm sick, I tell you. I
want to die."

"But it ain't right to die this way. Don't you know it's wicked?"

"Good and bad's all the same to me. I'm done for. There ain't a soul in