"Wesley," she said, "I do remember all that you told me these women and this work would do to me. If you prove to be wrong, I shall stay on here, and, of course, never see you again; but if you prove to be right I shall give it up, and then, Wesley, I shall marry you."
He rose with a glad cry; but she, rising also, waved him back.
"Not yet," she said. "Either find Mary Morton and the proofs that she is dishonest—not only what I know she is, but dishonest in what she would say and do—show me this, or else——"
With straining resolution, he confronted her.
"Or else?" he prompted.
"Or else bring her to me with her own denial and explanation."
XXV
DAUGHTERS OF ISHMAEL
When Mary left Rivington Street she faced the inevitable. She had seen the impossibility of domestic service; she knew nothing of any other trade; she could not endure the shame of an institution, and her fortune consisted of just fourteen dollars and fifty cents.
She walked, for a long time, aimlessly. The night thickened and, block by block, the streets flashed into electric illumination, each separate flame glowing like a malevolent eye to show her misery. Her strength, never yet fully restored, failed her. Her feet were tired, her knees bent irregularly, her head ached. As at her first sight of it, the city, which she knew scarcely better than on that spring evening when she had been tossed into it, was a conscious prison implacably shutting her in forever.