Night after night he haunted the more isolated East Side piers. Night after night he glanced down into the smooth, dark waters flowing silently past him, with a glance that held within it some deep meaning. Night after night as his body became lean and gaunt, as the lines deepened in his young face, as his pockets emptied themselves, magically, so it seemed, as he stared starvation in the face, the waters seemed to beckon to him, and death seemed, somehow, pleasanter than life. The time had come when he knew, when he was assured past all mistake, that he was at his rope's end. "I'm down at the bottom of the pit and there's no way up," he whispered to himself, and held out his arms for an instant toward the waters. "There's no way out but you, you," he went on, his purpose clinging desperately to him. He stopped and drew back from the edge and crouched against the stringpiece. For across the pier something had arrested his attention. A shadow deeper than the night, and part and parcel of the night itself, was creeping toward the edge. This shadow was the only moving thing that Beekman had ever seen upon this lonely pier. His nerves became suddenly alert, for now he saw that this shadow was a human being--a woman bent upon a woman's desperate purpose. He watched the shadow spellbound. Suddenly the woman lifted her hands high above her head, and with the wail of a hunted animal, cast herself off the stringpiece and into the river underneath. In the twinkling of an eye he had jerked off his coat and shoes and thrown himself into the stream. He caught her as she came up, but she clutched him and struggled, not to save herself, but to cast him off. Like a maniac she fought and the two went down together, Beekman gurgling in distress. By some superhuman effort he conquered her underneath the water, and coming up, held her, limp and inert with one hand, while he swam slowly, for his strength, owing to starvation, was fast ebbing. Somehow he managed to climb up the rough sides of the pier, bundling her up ahead of him, and laid her down, unconscious, on the stringpiece, where she lay for some time. When she had revived, however, the mania once more possessed her. "Leave me alone, please leave me alone!" she cried, her strength returning. "You've no right to interfere--no right to touch me...." Beekman held her tight until her paroxysm ceased, and once more she lay inert in his arms. Finally she opened her eyes and looked about her. "You're going to come along with me," he told her gently, forcing her on; but she tried to tear herself loose again. After a little while he succeeded in getting her to the street, but there, with some strength more powerful than his, she suddenly jerked herself from him and held him at arm's length, though he still held his grip upon her wrists. "Let me go! Let me go, I say! I'm tired--tired of men--tired of men like you!" she wailed. "I want to go home--I want to go back to my father--back to my father...."