Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/38

 "Don't you remember me helping you out of your wet things?"

She did not answer.

He gave her the sandwich and she took it in trembling, numb-red fingers eagerly. He began to make her another.

She swallowed the food in gulps, half masticated, because she was either too weak or too hungry to chew it. "Where am I?" she asked, in a thick whisper.

He told her. "You're all right," he said. "Now don't worry. I'll see that you get back safely, as soon as you feel able to walk. Is it far to your—to where you live?"

She did not reply. He gave her the cup of milk, and she looked up at him briefly, but her eyes told him nothing. She drank the milk as if her mouth demanded it but her mind was not interested in the matter.

"I don't live anywhere," she said, at last.

He accepted that as an evasion. "Where do you—work?"

She took the second sandwich, raised it to her lips, and stopped with her head drooped. "I don't work. I can't get work." Her voice broke. "That's what's the matter." The sandwich fell to her lap. She fumbled at it blindly, trying to pick it up again. He saw that it was tears that had blinded her. She was crying.

"Oh," he said.