Mrs. Mundy shook her head. "He sent her to a hospital out of town, but when she came back with the child he told her she would have to send it away somewhere, put it in some place, or he'd quit her. He seemed to hate the sight of it. It was on account of the child they had a fuss. Etta wouldn't give it up. She can be a little fury when she's mad, the girl said, and they had an awful row and he went off somewhere and stayed four months. She tried to get work, but each time some one told about her and she was turned off because—of the child. At one place one of the bosses tried to take some liberty with her and she threw an ink-bottle at him and he drove her away. She knew there wasn't any straight way left to her after that unless she starved or went in a rescue place. She tried to get in one and take the baby with her, but it was full, and then, too, she kept hoping she could get work. Then the baby got sick and needed what she couldn't give it, and after a while she gave up. She got a woman to look after the child, promised to pay her well, and went down into Lillie Pierce's world. Since the day she went she has never been out except to see the baby, until two weeks ago, when she moved into a decent place and took two rooms. Harrie had come back to her."
"How old is the child?"
"Ten months. She never intended it to know anything of its mother. She hoped she would die before it was old enough to understand. It's a little girl. Etta is eighteen."
The room grew still and, getting up, Mrs. Mundy put more coal on the fire, made blaze spring from it, warm and red. I waited for her to go on.
"It seems like Mr. Harrie can't stay away from her, the girl says. He never sees the child, though. The other woman, who's married and has children of her own, still keeps it for her. She's named Banch." Mrs. Mundy looked up. "I've found where the Banches live. It's only two squares from where Etta is now living."
"But Harrie?" I turned off the light behind me.
"He is with Etta. He was taken ill on Christmas night. Except the doctor, no one knows he is with her. He would have been dead by now had it not been for Etta, the doctor says. He had pneumonia. Mr. Guard and Mr. Crimm have gone to see him to-night, to see when he can be moved away."
"And Etta—what will become of her?"
Mrs. Mundy looked into the fire. "What can become of any girl like that but to go back to the old life? She's an outcast forever."
"And he—" I got up. All the repression of past ages was breaking into revolt. "He will go home and feed on the leaven of Pharisees and hypocrites, and later he will marry a girl of his world, and the world that will give him welcome will keep Etta in her hell. I wonder sometimes that God doesn't give us up—we who call ourselves clean and good! We are a lot of cowards, most of us women, of 'fraid-cats and cowards!"