"It is a comfort to speak with a gentleman again. I--I had almost
begun to believe there were none left in the world. You give me
courage to go on, to acknowledge everything. Mr. Craig, I was a soul
tottering on the brink when I met you out yonder; a desperate,
disheartened girl, tempted to the point of surrender. I had lost hope,
pride, all redeeming strength of womanhood. I scarcely cared whether
death, or dishonor, claimed me. I do not know what fateful impulse
moves me now, but I can look into your eyes without sense of shame, and
confess this. I was, in all essential truth, a woman of the
street--not yet lowered utterly to that level, not yet sacrificed, but
with no moral strength left for resistance. No fear, no horror. Oh,
God! it seems like some awful dream--yet it was true, true! I had
ceased to struggle, to care; I had begun to drift; I had lost
everything a woman prizes, even my faith in God. I know you cannot
comprehend what this means--no man could. But I want you to try.
Think what it would mean to your sister, to some pure friend in whom
you have implicit trust. Oh, I know what the world would say--the
well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed, sneering world--but it is to you I
appeal for some slight mercy. You have also suffered, and grown weak,
and, because you told me your story first, I dare now to tell mine. I
was a soul on the brink, and--God forgive me!--not afraid of the rocks
below. Like one stupefied I looked down, hated myself and laughed."




CHAPTER VIII

FACING THE PROBLEM