Eve was introduced to all these girls and women, and was given a table to herself with several sheets of foolscap and a file of papers. Mrs. Falconer came and stood by her, and explained the work she wanted her to do. “There is nothing like attacking people with facts. They penetrate the British skull! We are collecting all these cases, and making a register of them. We shall publish them in a cheap form, and have them sent all over the country.” “You want all these papers fair copied?” “Yes. They are in the rough, just as they were sent in to us. You will find that they are numbered.” Eve discovered that she had before her a series of reports dealing with well-authenticated cases of women who had been basely treated by men. Some of them were written on ordinary letter paper, others on foolscap, and not a few on the backs of circulars and bills. Nor was the batch that had been given her the first that had been handled. Each case was numbered, and Eve’s batch began at 293. There was a sordid and pathetic similarity about them all. “M—— W——, typist, 31, orphan. Engaged to be married to a clerk. The man borrowed her savings, got her into trouble, and then refused to marry her. Girl went into Queen Charlotte’s hospital. Baby born dead. The mother developed puerperal fever, but recovered. She was unable to get work for some time, and went into domestic service. Her health broke down. She is now in a workhouse infirmary.” “V—— L——. A particularly cruel case that ended in suicide. She had spent a little sum of money that had been left her, on educating herself. Obtained a very good post as secretary. Her employer took her with him to Paris, pretending that as she could speak French she would be very useful to him in certain business transactions. Drugs were used. Five months later the girl committed suicide in London by throwing herself under a Tube train.” All day, and for several days, Eve worked at these pathetic records, till she felt nauseated and depressed. It was a ghastly indictment drawn up against man, and yet it did not have the effect on her that Mrs. Falconer had expected. It did not drive her farther towards fanaticism. On the contrary, she was overcome by a feeling of helplessness and of questioning compassion. It was all so pitiable and yet so inevitable as things were, and through all the misery and the suffering she was brought to see that the whole blame could not be credited to the man. It was the system more than the individual.