"Your mother is going to sleep." His voice was low. "And we are going to be quiet and not wake her. Jimmy will play with you, and I—"
"Will you tell me a story?" Sleepily the child leaned against his shoulder, one arm thrown over it. "Will you tell me a pretty story about—"
As they disappeared through the door opening into Mrs. Gibbons's quarters I went into Mrs. Cotter's room, but for a moment drew back. I had learned not to shrink at much that once I would have run from, but the gaunt body and ghastly face of the woman propped against pillows on the bed frightened me, and my feet refused to move. All the hardships and denials, the injustices and inequalities, of working womanhood, unfit to fight and unprepared for struggle, were staring at me, and on the open lips was something of the mocking smile that had been on Lillie Pierce's face when she was first brought in to Mrs. Mundy.
Heavily, and with great labor, breath came gaspingly, and the blank stare in the eyes made me think at first I was too late. Slowly I went toward the bed, and at its side I took a twitching hand in mine, and as I did so the staring eyes turned to me. Too nearly gone for aught save faint returning, light struggled back in a supreme and final effort, and with life's last spark of energy she clutched my fingers with her work-worn, weary hands. Miss White, the district nurse, who was standing at the foot of the bed, nodded to me, and from a far corner the sobbing of a man and woman in shabby clothes, and crouched close together, reached across the room. All other worlds were, for the moment, far away, and only the world before me seemed real and true and unescapable.
Drawing a low chair close to the bed, I sat down and leaned toward the woman. There was little time to lose. "What is it, Mrs. Cotter? Look at me. This is Dandridge Heath. You have something you want to say to me. Tell me what it is."
Her head made backward, twisting movement as if for breath, then her eyes held mine, and in them was the cry eternal of all motherhood. "My little girl! My little girl! If only—I could take—her with me! Who's going to—tell her how—not to go—wrong? She won't be safe—on earth. Promise me—promise me!"
"Promise you what?" I leaned still farther over the bed. The fire of a tortured soul was burning in the eyes before me, and out of them had gone dull glaze and ghastly stare; into them had come appeal, both piteous and passionate, and fear that defied death. "What must I promise?" My eyes held hers lest words should wander.
"Tell me what I must do?"
"Don't let them put her in—an orphan home. The ones who—manage it—don't know themselves—how life—treats girls. They mean kind—but they don't teach them—what might happen. Little Etta—little Etta Blake lived in an orphan home. And now—now—"
The hands in mine were dropped, amazement for the moment making me forget all else. I leaned yet closer. "Where is she? Where is Etta Blake? Where can I find her?"