"It is beyond words, isn't it?" observed Smith. "There is nothing at all adequate that a man can say when he is confronted by such a thing as this, and almost nothing that he can do."
"Isn't there something, though?" the girl asked. "There must be hundreds of people homeless, without food or money or anything! Cannot we do anything to help them?"
"No doubt," said the man. "Individually we could scarcely be of much assistance; but I fancy that the local charity organizations or the Red Cross would see that any contribution went where it would do the most good."
Only a few minutes later they found where one of these institutions had opened temporary headquarters in an old church.
"Let us go in," said Miss Maitland.
As they entered they saw that the church was filled with refugees, come in to escape the cold. They were most of them sitting in groups, talking eagerly to one another. Some were lying asleep, stretched out full length on the pews. A woman was going about, serving hot coffee and soup and bread. The refugees ate hungrily, but on the faces of almost all of them rested the same dispirited look of dazed wonder. Apparently they were chiefly foreigners, the majority Italians, and it was evident that they had lost everything they had possessed. Helen stood watching them with a sad heart from the back of the church, and Smith, looking at her, saw that her eyes were full of tears. He laid his hand gently on her arm. "Please don't," he said gravely. But he understood.
"But it seems so unfair for them to have lost everything," the girl said. "They had so little to lose."
She turned her face to his.
"There is no answer to that," he said; "but we can help them a little."
To the woman in charge they gave what they could afford to give, and turned toward home. It was nearly four o'clock, and Mrs. Maitland might be growing anxious about their safety. They walked forward in a silence which neither wished to break.