Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/39

 She, the practical; she, the loyal; she was going to allow her paper to be "thrown down" on the biggest story of the year! For, above it all, a little refrain sang in her ears, and it was "One—more—chance,—one—more—chance,—one—more—chance." The scrub-woman seemed to be singing it, too, and it kept time with the clang of an anvil in a shop near by. Ruth Herrick dashed the tears from her eyes, and swallowed a lump that rose in her throat. When she spoke again there was no trace in voice or manner of the mental struggle through which she had passed.

"I am going to forget this interview," she said. "I am going to let you have the chance which a fair trial will give you. You could not talk to a jury as you have talked to me, but it will not be necessary. You will probably be acquitted. Everybody says so, and a great many people believe in you. And then you will begin life again. No one shall know that I have talked to you, and you must promise me that you will talk to no one else. Do not see another reporter."

She smiled ironically at this stipulation of