Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/32

 got his door open and his lamp lit. Then he carried her in and put her on his bed—a camp cot, without a mattress, for which he had paid fifty cents in a second-hand shop of the tenement quarter. It was covered with nothing but a pair of gray blankets, and he was not afraid of soiling them. Her head lay, dripping, on a pillow that had no pillow-case, and she looked as if she had been drowned. Her lips were white, but her face was a yellowish green. For a moment he was afraid that she had died in his arms. A faint breath reassured him. He hastened to light his oil-stove and warm up the remains of his day's coffee, which he had drawn off the grounds to save it.

While the coffee was heating he unbuttoned her worn shoes and drew them off. Her stockings were just as wet as her shoes, so he removed her stockings, too, tugging at them gingerly at the heels and ankles, and bringing off, with them, a pair of exhausted-looking round garters. Her feet were as chilled as if they had been on ice, and he had a queer idea that they had shrunken with the cold—they were so small. He rubbed them dry with his only towel, and bandaged the towel around them to get them warm.

When the coffee was ready he poured it into his tin cup and took it to her, clear. "Here," he said, raising her to a sitting posture, "this will brace you."

She whined, with her eyes closed.

He put the cup to her lips. "Try a mouthful."