She sat alone once more one evening in the little room which after all thus far she and Annie had been able to retain. Her oculist had taken much from her scanty store of money. She held in her hand his last bill--unpaid; and though she had paid a score of his bills, yet her eyesight now was nearly gone. Her doctor called it "retinal failure"; and it had steadily advanced, whatever it was. Now she knew that there was no hope. She greeted the homecoming of her room-mate each nightfall with eagerness. Annie by this time had found harder and worse paid work in another factory. She came in with her hands scarred and torn, her nails broken and stained. She had grown more reticent of late. "Well, how are things coming along, Sis?" said she this evening on her return, after she had thrown her wrap across a chair back. "How much money have you got left? You look to me like you was counting it." "Not very much, Annie--not very much. The doctor--you see, I can't take his time and not pay him." "You're too thin-skinned. What are doctors for?" "But, Annie, I don't know what to do. I'm scared. That's the truth about it--I'm scared!" Her companion smiled, with her new slow and cynical smile. "Some of us go to the lake--or to a man--or to men," said she, succinctly. "Look over the stock of goods that's within your means. Bargains. Odds and Ends." "What could I _do_?" "Suppose you got married to your gentle and chivalrous rancher out West. Maybe you'd be able to stand it after a while, even if he dyed his hair, or had his neck shaved round. Mostly they have false teeth--before they'll advertise. Probably he's a widower. Object: matrimony; that mostly is a widower's main object in life; and you can't show 'em nothing except when you bury 'em." "I'd die before I'd answer that sort of a thing!" said Mary Warren hotly. "You would," replied Annie. "I know that. I knew it all along. That's why I had to take it into my own hands." Again the cynical smile of Annie Squires, twenty-two. "Your own hands--what do you mean by that?" "I might as well tell you. I've been writing to him in your name! I've sent him a _picture_ of you--I got it in the bureau drawer. And he's crazy over you!" Mary Warren looked at her with wrath, humiliation and offended dignity showing in her reddened cheeks. "You had the audacity to do that, Annie! How _dared_ you? How _could_ you?" "Well, I was afraid of the lake for you, and I knew that something had to be done, and you wouldn't do it. I've got quite a batch of letters from him. He's got three hundred and twenty acres of land, eight cows, a horse and a mule. He has a house which is all right except it lacks the loving care of a woman! Well, stack that up against this room. And we can't even keep this for very long.