The Fruit of the Tree | Page 4

had a talk with her?"
"I went out to Westmore last night. I was haunted by her face when she
came to the hospital. She looks forty, but she told me she was only
twenty-six." Miss Brent paused to steady her voice. "It's the curse of
my trade that it's always tempting me to interfere in cases where I can
do no possible good. The fact is, I'm not fit to be a nurse--I shall live
and die a wretched sentimentalist!" she ended, with an angry dash at
the tears on her veil.
Her companion walked on in silence till she had regained her
composure. Then he said: "What did you think of Westmore?"

"I think it's one of the worst places I ever saw--and I am not unused to
slums. It looks so dead. The slums of big cities are much more
cheerful."
He made no answer, and after a moment she asked: "Does the
cotton-dust always affect the lungs?"
"It's likely to, where there is the least phthisical tendency. But of course
the harm could be immensely reduced by taking up the old rough floors
which hold the dust, and by thorough cleanliness and ventilation."
"What does the company do in such cases? Where an operative breaks
down at twenty-five?"
"The company says there was a phthisical tendency."
"And will they give nothing in return for the two lives they have
taken?"
"They will probably pay for Dillon's care at the hospital, and they have
taken the wife back as a scrubber."
"To clean those uncleanable floors? She's not fit for it!"
"She must work, fit for it or not; and there is less strain in scrubbing
than in bending over the looms or cards. The pay is lower, of course,
but she's very grateful for being taken back at all, now that she's no
longer a first-class worker."
Miss Brent's face glowed with a fine wrath. "She can't possibly stand
more than two or three months of it without breaking down!"
"Well, you see they've told her that in less than that time her husband
will be at work again."
"And what will the company do for them when the wife is a hopeless
invalid, and the husband a cripple?"
Amherst again uttered the dry laugh with which he had met her

suggestion of an emergency hospital. "I know what I should do if I
could get anywhere near Dillon--give him an overdose of morphine,
and let the widow collect his life-insurance, and make a fresh start."
She looked at him curiously. "Should you, I wonder?"
"If I saw the suffering as you see it, and knew the circumstances as I
know them, I believe I should feel justified--" He broke off. "In your
work, don't you ever feel tempted to set a poor devil free?"
She mused. "One might...but perhaps the professional instinct to save
would always come first."
"To save--what? When all the good of life is gone?"
"I daresay," she sighed, "poor Dillon would do it himself if he
could--when he realizes that all the good is gone."
"Yes, but he can't do it himself; and it's the irony of such cases that his
employers, after ruining his life, will do all they can to patch up the
ruins."
"But that at least ought to count in their favour."
"Perhaps; if--" He paused, as though reluctant to lay himself open once
more to the charge of uncharitableness; and suddenly she exclaimed,
looking about her: "I didn't notice we had walked so far down
Maplewood Avenue!"
They had turned a few minutes previously into the wide thoroughfare
crowning the high ground which is covered by the residential quarter of
Hanaford. Here the spacious houses, withdrawn behind shrubberies and
lawns, revealed in their silhouettes every form of architectural
experiment, from the symmetrical pre-Revolutionary structure, with its
classic portico and clipped box-borders, to the latest outbreak in
boulders and Moorish tiles.
Amherst followed his companion's glance with surprise. "We have

gone a block or two out of our way. I always forget where I am when
I'm talking about anything that interests me."
Miss Brent looked at her watch. "My friends don't dine till seven, and I
can get home in time by taking a Grove Street car," she said.
"If you don't mind walking a little farther you can take a Liberty Street
car instead. They run oftener, and you will get home just as soon."
She made a gesture of assent, and as they walked on he continued: "I
haven't yet explained why I am so anxious to get an unbiassed opinion
of Dillon's case."
She looked at him in surprise. "What you've told me about Dr. Disbrow
and your manager is surely enough."
"Well, hardly, considering that I am Truscomb's subordinate. I
shouldn't have committed a breach