Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/42

 He sat down on the side of the bed and began to talk to her. He assured her that he would help her; that he would take care of her; that he would fix the room, some way, so that they might both live in it; or he would rent two rooms somewhere, and she could work for him, or pass as his sister, or whatever else she pleased.

She listened, watching his lips, smiling with that open-mouthed panting, and evidently hearing nothing. He gave it up at last and made her comfortable between the blankets, and went back to his seat at his table to think it over. He rolled a misered cigarette and lit it, but it did not help him. He allowed himself, in these days, ten cents a week for tobacco. He fell asleep, with his head on his arms, and when he awoke, hours later, he found her curled up on the floor at his feet.

He took her back to the bed and made a sort of sleeping-bag of the blankets by pinning them together with safety-pins; and he pinned her into this, and tied her down with the line on which he dried his washing. There was a bathroom opening from the hall, and he shut himself in there, with his pillow, intending to sleep on the floor, but she whined so—like a dog locked in alone—that he came back and lay on the floor above her bed, with his feet to the oil-heater.

His problem, as he saw it, was this: The girl's mind had divided against itself under the stress of revolting ill usage; if he sheltered her and protected