"There's something wrong there," said the Doctor. "Who is it? Can you see who it is, Denny?" "Yes, sir," he answered, and Deborah broke in, "it's that poor girl of--of Jim Conner's, sir." The Doctor, at once nervous and agitated, was not a little worried and could make no reply, knowing that it was Jim Conner who had killed Deborah's husband. "Poor thing," murmured Deborah. "For the love of God, look at that now, Doctor!" The girl had reached the corner, and had fallen or thrown herself in a crouching heap against the monument. The widow was starting for the street, but Denny caught her arm: "No--no mother, you mustn't do that, you know how she's scared to death of you; let the Doctor go." The physician was already on his way as fast as his old legs would take him. CHAPTER VIII. THE WORK OF THE ALLY "In the little room that looked out upon the Monument and the garden, Dan--all unknowing--slept. And over all brooded the spirit that lives in Corinth--the Ally--that dread, mysterious thing that never sleeps." Grace Conner is a type common to every village, town and city in the land, the saddest of all sad creatures--a good girl with a bad reputation. Her reputation Grace owed first to her father's misdeeds, for which the girl could in no way be to blame, and second, to the all-powerful Ally, without whom the making of any reputation, good or bad, is impossible. The Doctor knew the girl well. When she was a little tot and a member of Martha's Sunday school class, she was at the house frequently. Later as a member of the church she herself was a teacher and an active worker. Then came the father's crime and conviction, followed soon by the mother's death, and the girl was left to shift for herself. She had kept herself alive by working here and there, in the canning factory and restaurants, and wherever she could. No one would give her a place in a home. The young people in the church, imitating their elders, shunned her, and it was not considered good policy to permit her to continue teaching in the Sunday school. No mother wanted her child to associate with a criminal's daughter; naturally she drifted away from the regular services, and soon it was publicly announced that her name had been dropped from the roll of membership. After that she never came. It was not long until the girl had such a name that no self respecting man or woman dared be caught recognizing her on the street. The people always spoke of her as "that Grace Conner." The girl, hurt so often, grew to fear everyone. She strove to avoid meeting people on the street, or meeting them, passed with downcast eyes, not daring to greet them. Barely able to earn bread to keep life within her poor body, her clothing grew shabby, her form thin and worn; and these very evidences of her goodness of character worked to accomplish her ruin. But she was a good girl through it all, a good girl with a bad reputation.