``There is nothing I can do--nothing!''
All at once, with no apparent bridge across the vast
chasm, her heart went out, not in pity but in human
understanding and sisterly sympathy, to the women of the
pariah class at whom, during her stops in New York,
she had sometimes gazed in wonder and horror. ``Why,
we and they are only a step apart,'' she said to herself in
amazement. ``We and they are much nearer than my
maid or the cook and they!''
And then her heart skipped a beat and her skin grew
cold and a fog swirled over her brain. If she should be
cast out--if she could find no work and no one to support
her--would she-- ``O my God!'' she moaned.
``I must be crazy, to think such thoughts. I never
could! I'd die first--DIE!'' But if anyone had pictured
to her the kind of life she was now leading--the
humiliation and degradation she was meekly enduring
with no thought of flight, with an ever stronger desire
to stay on, regardless of pride and self-respect--if
anyone had pictured this to her as what she would
endure, what would she have said? She could see herself
flashing scornful denial, saying that she would rather
kill herself.
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