"You'll know the truth by this time. Don't waste any sympathy over me! I don't care--the other was worse! I couldn't go back and starve! Don't blame Joe, either; it's all my doing! I suppose the girls will say terrible things about me. The Duchess told me Ida's married: I'm glad of it. Dodo, I wish I could see you some day, just to _talk_ to, but I suppose that's impossible. Remember what I say--only I hope it won't ever happen!--if things ever go bad with you, and you're dead up against it, come to me! What you've been to me I never can forget! Perhaps now you can even forgive me about Mr. Peavey. I was desperate! Don't refuse the hundred dollars I send you in this. It'll hurt me terribly--and I owe you every cent of it, on my word of honor! Good-by, Dodo. You've got more chances than I had; only don't make mistakes! "WINONA (Mrs. Edgar Sampson.)" "P. S. Now, whatever you do, don't get teary about me. It isn't necessary. I don't care in the least--now! That's honest!" Inclosed was a bank-note of a hundred dollars. The sight of this money coming from such a source brought to Dodo a sudden horror akin to the smarting shame she had experienced at Brennon's insulting advances. She went out hastily to lunch, alone, to that mediocre noisy restaurant on Lexington Avenue where she had gone so miserably on the night of her first meeting with Massingale, Sassoon and Lindaberry. There, in the quiet of a corner, she took out the letter and reread it. Her first thought was to rush to Winona and take her in her arms. No; certainly she had nothing in her heart now but charity. How well she understood the horror of returning into the old! Why should not a woman have the right to progress, to free herself from hateful surroundings? Why should it be so difficult for a woman, when it was so easy for a man? Why should she only be forced to the wall? In the bare room, lighted by feeble curtained windows, she saw this other life from which she too had emerged, to which she was resolved never to return, but which frightened her now as a possibility. How tired and pinched these men and women were who surrounded her! And the women, how bare of coquetry and charm! Even the young men who clustered in a corner, talking languidly, had a tired air of being already middle-aged!