"I got a room a couple of squares over," he said slowly. "You might come
over there 'til you get dried out and rested up a bit."
"I don't want to go anywhere. I'm too sick. I don't want to have to
see people."
"You won't have to. It's a rooming house. The old woman that looks after
things has gone by now."
It took considerable persuasion to get her on her feet and up the bank.
Again and again she refused to go on, declaring that she didn't want to
live. But Dan's patience was limitless. Added to his compassion for her,
was the half-superstitious belief that he had been appointed by
Providence to save her.
"It's just around the corner now," he encouraged her. "Can you make it?"
She stumbled on blindly, without answering, clinging to his arm and.
breathing heavily.
"Here we are!" said Dan, turning into a dark entrance, "front room on the
left. Steady there!"
But even as he opened the door, Birdie swayed forward and would have
fallen to the floor, had he not caught her and laid her on the bed.
Hastily lighting the lamp on the deal table by the window, he went back
to the bed and loosened the neck of her dripping coat and then looked
down at her helplessly. Her face, startlingly white in its frame of black
hair, showed dark circles under the eyes, and her full lips had lost not
only their color, but the innocent curves of childhood as well.
Presently she opened her eyes wearily and looked about her.
"I'm cold," she said with a shiver, "and hungry.
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