The tiny form of little Maggie was lost under the ragged and dirty coverlet. The child's face in the tangled mass of her unkempt hair was so wasted and drawn, her eyes, closed under their dark lids, so deeply sunken, and her teeth so exposed by the thin fleshless lips, that she seemed scarcely human. One bony arm with its clawlike hand encircled the rag doll that she had held that day when Helen took the two children into the country. As Helen looked all her fears vanished. She had no thought, now, of where she was or how she came there. Deep within her she felt the awakening of that mother soul which lives in every woman. She did not shrink in horror from this hideous fruit of Jake Vodell's activity. She did not cry out in pity or sorrow. She uttered no word of protest. As she put the lamp down on the box, her hand did not tremble. Very quietly she placed the chair beside the bed and sat down to watch and wait as motherhood in all ages has watched and waited. While poor Sam Whaley was busy on some mission assigned to him by his leader, Jake Vodell, and his wife and boy were gone for the food supplied by a stranger to his household, this woman, of the class that he had been taught to hate, held alone her vigil at the bedside of the workman's little girl. A thin, murmuring voice came from the bed. Helen leaned closer. She heard a few incoherent mutterings--then, "No--no--Bobby, yer wouldn't dast blow up the castle. Yer'd maybe kill the princess lady--yer know yer couldn't do that!" Again the weak little voice sank into low, meaning less murmurs. The tiny, clawlike fingers plucked at the coverlet. "Tain't so, the princess lady _will_ find her jewel of happiness, I tell yer, Bobby, jest like the Interpreter told us--cause her heart is kind--yer know her heart is--kind--kind--" Silence again. Some one passed the house. A dog howled. A child in the house next door cried. Across the street a man's voice was raised in anger. Suddenly little Maggie's eyes opened wide. "An' the princess lady is a-comin' some day to take Bobby and me away up in the sky to her beautiful palace place where there's flowers and birds an' everythin' all the time an'--an'--" The big eyes were fixed on Helen's face as the' young woman stooped over the bed, and the light of a glorious smile transformed the wasted childish features. "Why--why--yer--yer've come!" CHAPTER XXV McIVER'S OPPORTUNITY When the politician stopped at the cigar stand late that afternoon for a box of the kind he gave his admirers, the philosopher, scratching the revenue label, remarked, "I see by the papers that McIver is still a-stayin'." "Humph!" grunted the politician with careful diplomacy. The bank clerk who was particular about his pipe tobacco chimed in, "McIver is a stayer all right when it comes to that." "Natural born fighter, sir," offered the politician tentatively.