"Why, Bobby," she faltered, "I--I came to see you and Maggie--I was at the Interpreter's this afternoon and he told me--I mean something he said made me want to come." "The Interpreter, he's all right," said the boy. "So's Mary Martin." "Aren't you just a little glad to see me, Bobby?" The boy did not seem to hear. "Funny the way Mag talks about yer all the time. She's purty sick all right. Peterson's baby, it died." "Can't we go into the house and see Maggie? You must be nearly frozen standing out here in the cold." "Huh, I'm used to freezin'--I guess yer can come on in though--if yer want to. Mebbe Mag 'd like to see yer." He pushed open the door, and she followed him into the ghastly barrenness of the place that he knew as home. Never before had the daughter of Adam Ward viewed such naked, cruel poverty. She shuddered with the horror of it. It was so unreal--so unbelievable. A small, rusty cookstove with no fire--a rude table with no cloth--a rickety cupboard with its shelves bare save for a few dishes--two broken-backed chairs--that was all. No, it was not all--on a window ledge, beneath a bundle of rags that filled the opening left by a broken pane, was a small earthen flowerpot holding a single scraggly slip of geranium. Helen seemed to hear again the Interpreter saying, "A girl with true instincts for the best things of life and a capacity for great happiness." At Bobby's call, Mrs. Whaley came from another room. The boy did not even attempt an introduction but stood sullenly aside, waiting developments, and the mother in her pitiful distress evidently failed to identify their visitor when Helen introduced herself. "I'm pleased to meet you, ma'am," she said, mechanically, and gazed at the young woman with a stony indifference, as though her mind, deadened by fearful anxiety and physical suffering, refused even to wonder at the stranger's presence in her home. Helen did not know what to say--in the presence of this living tragedy of motherhood she felt so helpless, so overwhelmed with the uselessness of mere words. What right had she, a stranger from another world, to intrude unasked upon the privacy of this home? And yet, something deep within her--something more potent in its authority than the conventionalities that had so far ruled her life--assured her that she had the right to be there. "I--I called to see Bobby and Maggie," she faltered. "I met them, you know, at the Interpreter's." As if Helen's mention of the old basket maker awakened a spark of life in her pain-deadened senses, the woman returned, "Yes, ma'am--take a chair. No, not that one--it's broke. Here--this one will hold you up, I guess." With nervous haste she dusted the chair with her apron. "You'd best keep your things on. We don't have no fire except to cook by--when there's anything to cook." She found a match and lighted a tiny lamp, for it was growing dark. "Bobby tells me that little Maggie is ill," offered Helen.