“We lived in the slums. They told me my father was a big man, a man such as Tom is now. He was a railroad engineer. He was killed when I was a baby. Then we sank into the slums. My mother––she died when I was twelve. There was then only Mary and I and Tom. He could make only a little, working at odd jobs. Mary and I worked in a factory. Even she was under age. When I was going on fourteen there came a terrible winter when thousands were out of work. We almost starved.”
“You––starved!” murmured Ashton. “Starved! And I was starting in at college, flinging away money!”
“Tom tried to force people to let him work,” the girl went on drearily. “He was violent. They put him in jail. Soon Mary and I had nothing left. There was no work for us. We had sold everything that anyone would buy. The rent was overdue. They turned us out––on the streets.... I was too young; but Mary.... She found a place where I could stay. They were decent people, but hard....
“The weather was bitterly cold. She was taken sick. When the people with whom I was staying heard what she had done, they refused to help. I begged in the street. I was very small and thin. The––the beasts did not trouble me. Then, when Mary 363 was very sick, I met Daddy. I begged from him. He did not give me a nickel and pass on. He stopped and made me talk––he made me take him to Mary.
“He had her moved to the best hospital.... It was too late.... I also had pneumonia. They said I would die. But Daddy brought me home just as soon as I could be moved. The railroad was then a hundred miles from Dry Mesa. But he kept me wrapped in furs, and all the way he carried me in his arms. Do you wonder why I love him so?... That is all. You see now why I shrank from telling––why I denied Mary.”
“She is in Heaven,” said Ashton––“in Heaven, where some day you will go. But I––I––” She could see no more than the vague blotch of his white face in the darkness, but his voice told her the anguish of his look. “He was right––your brother. He told me that we always take with us the heaven or the hell that we each have made for ourselves.... I have lost you.... You know now why I am going down to do the little that I can do.”
“You are going down?” she asked wonderingly. “You still say that you are going down? Yet I have told you about––Mary!”
“If you were she, I still would be utterly unfit to look you in the face. I shall go to the camp for the lantern. There were other gloves and some of my clothing.” 364
“They are all here.”
“Show me where they are, and get ready the lantern and bandages and a sack of food.”