Just at the time when Nancy Bodkin felt that life might be taking on a happier aspect for Marcia, she heard the slam of the screen door and looking from her work down the long aisle of the store, she saw coming toward her what she thought was the handsomest man that she ever had seen. In her hasty summary she could note that he was tall, that he was dark, that he was tastefully and expensively clothed. Her eyes raced about the room searching for Marcia who was standing before a case in which she was arranging some finished hats. She saw Marcia start and cast a glance in her direction. She saw her hesitate before she moved forward to meet the stranger. Nancy laid down her work, crossed her hands on it, and sat watching intently. She saw the young man take an envelope from his pocket and with a few polite sentences he drew therefrom some old yellowed papers which he showed to Marcia but did not give into her keeping. She saw him hand Marcia some clean, new papers, and with a bow of exaggerated deference, she saw him turn and leave the store. She watched Marcia follow him, close the door and turn the key in the lock. It was mid-day; customers might come at any minute. In a daze she watched Marcia with a ghastly face come the length of the store toward her and draw the curtains behind her. She felt the papers thrust into her hands. Then she realized that Marcia was on her knees; she felt the weight of her head in her lap, the clinging grip of her arms around her.

The little milliner slowly straightened. She never had felt quite so important, quite so confident, quite so worth while in all her life. Suddenly, to herself she became a rock upon which a craft was being splintered. The hand she laid on Marcia’s bent head was perfectly firm.

“Now you buck up,” she said authoritatively. “You must. I don’t know what this means till I’ve had time to look and to hear, but I can make a fairly good guess. Whatever it is, I can tell you without either looking or hearing that we’re going to fight.”

Marcia sat back on the floor. She exposed a pitiful face.

“Fight!” she cried passionately. “Fight? It’s all very well for the innocent to fight, but how can the guilty wage battle?”

Nancy looked at the woman she loved—her efficient partner, the being upon whom she had come to depend for hope and help and human companionship when stiff bones and gray days and a sordid stomach and nerves that pulled and muscles that twitched were upon her. With a gesture that was truly regal, she shook open the papers and carefully went through them. Then she looked at the formidable sum total at the bottom. It would practically wipe out the savings of six years for Marcia and cut heavily into her own.

“Do you owe this?” she asked tersely.

Marcia shook her head.

“They’re vultures,” she said. “They prey equally on the quick and the dead.”

Nancy stared at Marcia. The thumb and first finger of her right hand were busy working her lower lip into folds.

“Marcia,” she said softly, “you’ve never told me anything, and I’ve never asked; but now we’re at the place where I must know. So tell me. Were you the mother of a child born of Martin Moreland?”

Marcia promptly and emphatically shook her head.

“But there was a child?” insisted Nancy.

Marcia nodded. “Yes,” she said, “there was a child, but I was not his mother. Martin Moreland brought him to me when he couldn’t have been more than a few hours old.”

“Check!” cried the little milliner in tones of triumph. Then she sprang up. She lifted Marcia to her feet. She kissed her and smoothed her hair. She shoved back the curtains, unlocked the front door and set it wide. Then she returned to her work table, pushed aside the soft feathers and the gay flowers, and taking a big sheet of paper and a tall pencil, she sat down and began asking Marcia searching questions and recording the answers. Inside of an hour she had completed a considerable bill for nursing Jason in infancy, caring for him for sixteen years, washing, mending, nursing, and boarding him.

When she had finished, she went over her work to verify it, and then she looked up at Marcia and said: “Now, then, let the Morelands come on! Let them undertake to collect a bill for the rent of that house for sixteen years! Unless I’ve lost all my art at figuring, I’ve got this bill strictly within reason and nearly three times the amount of theirs, which will allow it to be lopped considerably and still make you some profit.”

Marcia picked up the sheet and studied it, but her hands shook so that she was forced to lay it upon the table and sit down in order to go over it accurately.

“It is all right,” she said. “I haven’t a doubt but that in law it will hold, but it spells ruin. I can’t go into court with this thing and come out of it unscathed. It means that while I may make him pay it, I must turn over to you my share of the business; I must leave the only home and the people I know, and the only one on earth who loves me, and go somewhere else and start all over again among strangers.”

Then Marcia began to cry, terrible sobs that racked and shook her. Again she stretched out helpless hands and again Nancy stood rock bound.

“Now stop!” she said firmly. “Stop it! We haven’t got anything to do but send this to Martin Moreland. We must make him think that it was sent by a lawyer. We’ve got to let him know that we’re able to fight, that we will fight. But you can bank on one thing that’s certain and sure. He isn’t going to explain to the public to whom the child he brought for your care, belonged. He isn’t going to want the other deacons of the Presbyterian Church and the directors of the bank and the county officials to know where he got the boy he forced you to take care of. Certainly he isn’t going to want to face the question, ‘Who’s his mother?’ You needn’t be the least bit afraid. Never in the world will he let that happen. He’s just what you said he was—a vulture. He doesn’t care whether the meat he lives on is fresh or rotten. He can thrive on either kind equally well.”

Marcia sat a long time gazing into the kitchen. It was a strange thing that she could draw comfort from a cook stove and pots and pans. They are not particularly attractive to many people, but they were attractive to Marcia. There are souls in this world so stranded that they are fortunate if they have an animal upon which to lavish their affections; and there are others whose lives are so bleak that they must love mere things—the bed on which they sleep, the chairs on which they sit, the pots and pans in which they cook the food that they eat. And then, pots and pans are a symbol. They do not mean beauty, but they mean utility. They suggest nourishment, strength, and sustenance. They spell home, and home means sheltering walls and sometimes it means love. It meant love to Marcia. As she looked up at Nancy, still in her rock-bound attitude, she saw upon her face a thing that swept a wave of emotion through Marcia’s sick soul such as it never before had known. She was not going to be forced to give up the accumulations of years against comfort for age and illness. That meant something. But it did not mean the highest thing. She was still young and strong. She knew that there were several ways in which she could assure bodily comfort. The thing of which she got assurance in that hour was the greatest thing in all this world. It was the assurance that the little milliner would stand by, that she was not going to desert a sinking ship. Whatever happened, her friendship was going to weather; whatever storm broke on her friend, she was going to be the anchor that would hold.

In that hour Marcia deliberately went down on her knees again. She put her arms around the waist of Nancy, she met her eyes frankly, and she purged her soul. Torn beyond control when she had finished the last word of self-condemnation she had to utter, when the last scalding tear she had to shed had burned its way down her cheeks, she pulled open the dress she was wearing, exposing her firm white breast to her friend. Her own eyes were upon it.

“Look,” she said, “it looks soft and white, doesn’t it, but the dreadful scarlet brand has scorched for years; it’s burning there now. It always will. I can see that for your sake, for the sake of the business, I must go on hiding it until I die. Personally, it would be almost a relief to stand up outside our door or before the altar in the church, and tell every one what I have told you.”

Nancy Bodkin was doing some crying for herself at that minute, but presently she wiped her eyes and surprised even herself with the joy of her inspiration.

“That isn’t necessary,” she said. “It wouldn’t help in any way. The thing you must do is to go to God. Tell Him what you have told me. Ask His help. Your sin is against God. He will forgive a woman whose greatest fault is that she loved the wrong man; that she loved a man who betrayed her and used her for his purposes when he should have sheltered her and sustained her. God is great and He is merciful.”

Nancy helped Marcia to her feet. She led her to the door of her room, and opening it, she shoved her through. “Go and make your peace with God,” she said. “I have nothing to forgive you. If He has, He will know about it and He will let you feel His forgiveness and His love.”

She shut the door, and going back to her work table, she sat down, and with steady hands, she sheared, twisted, and sewed, and by and by, when Marcia came from her room with peace in her heart and less pain in her eyes, the little milliner almost paralysed her. She held up a thing that was really a creation and she cried gayly: “Go wash and powder your nose and get ready to try this! I believe it’s the damnedest best-looking hat that I’ve ever made!”