Vandervelde felt a sort of sick horror. He couldn't quite understand Gracie's psychology; her unreasoning, ignorant terror.
"Why, my poor girl, what a notion! You—" he stammered.
"I been treated bad enough alive without bein' cut up when I'm dead," said she, interrupting him. "I get to thinkin' about it, wakin' up here in the night. He said his folks'd help me if I asked 'em."
"Of course, of course! Certainly we'll help!" said Vandervelde hastily.
"If I had any money saved up, 't wouldn't be so bad. But I ain't. We never do. I—I been sick a long time. What clothes I had they kep' against the rent I was owin', when they told me to get out. An' I walked an' walked,—an' then one o' them cops in Central Park, he seen me, an' next thing I knew I was here."
She was getting hysterical, and he saw that it was quite useless to try to reason with her; the one way to allay her terror was to make the promise she implored.
"Well, now that your message has reached us, Gracie, you need not be afraid any more, because what you fear won't happen; it can't happen. There!—Put it out of your mind."
She stared at him intently, and decided that this large, fair man was one to be implicitly trusted.
"You bein' one o' his people, if you say it won't happen, then it won't happen," she told him, and fetched a great sight of relief. "Oh! I was that scared I 'most died! I—I just naturally can't bear the idea o' bein' turned over to them doctors." And she shuddered.
"Well, now that you're satisfied you won't be, suppose you tell me something more immediate that I can do for you. Isn't there something you'd like?"