She sat down and began digging in the snow, holding the sullen look desperately on her face. The kind word had reached the tortured soul beneath, and it struggled madly to be free.
"Can I help you?"
No answer.
"There's something in your face makes me heart-sick. I've a little girl of your age."
She looked up quickly.
"Who are you, girl?"
She stood up again, her child's face white, the dark river rolling close by her feet.
"I'm Lot. I always was what you see. My mother drank herself to death in the Bowery dens. I learned my trade there, slow and sure."
She stretched out her hands into the night, with a wild cry,—
"My God! I had to live!"