"Not that, not that!" she said quickly. "I have enough to eat, but—" She looked at him more closely, looked into his eyes, and felt rather than saw that it was not mere idle curiosity that was prompting his question.
"It's very kind of you to take an interest in a stranger. I'm feeding the child myself," she said after a pause; "but I can't now, I can't!" The girl tried hard to keep back her tears. "It would poison her if I did! I dare not until I feel different. I'm full of hate and misery and hell, and I dare not feed it to the child. Mother's milk is poison when the mother feels as I do!" she cried, striking her breast in her misery.
The old man took her hand. "Don't, please don't," he said gently; "unless you want the child to die. Compose yourself, my dear girl, and tell me what has happened. I'm a stranger to you, yes, but misery brings us together and makes us old friends." He seated himself beside her. "Tell me; I am old enough to be your father! You have none, eh?"
"Yes," said the girl, "I have, but—" she broke off suddenly. Then she said, "My husband has left me, and the child not eight weeks old. Isn't that hard luck? Left me—for another! Oh, I know it's an old story, but it's new enough to me. God knows it's new enough to me!"
Von Barwig comforted her as well as he could, and when the girl quieted down she told him her story. It was conventional enough. She had run away from home and married a young fellow she met in a Harlem dance hall. She knew nothing of his people or of his early life. She simply married him, and now he had deserted her after the arrival of her child. There was nothing uncommon or strange either in her story or her way of telling it. Von Barwig had heard such stories hundreds of times, but to him the pathos of the situation lay in the inability of the young mother to feed the crying child owing to her distracted mental condition. Further, the fact that she was sufficiently acquainted with the laws of physiology to realise this truth showed Von Barwig that the girl had received a better education than most of her class.
"Have you money?" he asked her.
"A little," the girl replied listlessly. "Oh, God, if the child would only stop crying," she said as she kissed and fondled the babe. Then she sighed. "I feel better now," she said, "much better. Perhaps in a little while I shall be myself again." Von Barwig handed her a five dollar bill.
"You will buy the little fellow something with the compliments of a stranger. What do you call him?" he said quickly, for he saw that his generous action had brought tears to the girl's eyes and he wanted to prevent her crying. "He's a fine little chap," he added.
"It's a girl," she said, the ghost of a smile coming into her face. "Her name is Annie. I'll take this for her sake. Thank you, sir, thank you!"
"A little girl," he said in his low, gentle voice; "a little girl! I had a little girl once," and he stifled the sob that came into his throat. The girl heard this sob and squeezed his hand gently in sympathy.