a different life. I have gone to church and fancied myself clothed with the purity and innocence of the other days. Perhaps I turned my head to look about me. Perhaps I heard a smothered exclamation not meant for my ears. Mocking me, driving me back to a realization of my degradation, would be a face—the face of a man who had come to the 'E—— Club' in search of a vent for his beastly desires. He could do what I could not and yet be respected. When I sought out a place of worship, even he was ready to point a mocking finger, to leer at me with an insulting smile.

"In the theatres, in the parks, in the shopping districts and on the streets of the city I have tried, for just a little while, to imagine myself the girl of the olden days. Always, everywhere, omnipresent has been the reminder that drove me back to the 'E——' with a sigh of relief and a sense of refuge. Can you understand?

"I have steeled myself to live this life because there is no other left to me.

"I have hoped and prayed that I would not live long, that I would grow ugly in features and a person whom men would shun, but in vain. But I know that sooner or later my hope will be realized."

"But I can help to save you. I can put you in a position where you can earn a respectable living and where you will be happy," pleaded the reporter.

For a time the girl was in deep thought. When she raised her head again her eyes were wet with tears.

"I couldn't do it. I can never be anything else now," she said. "Were I to take a position, it would be but a question of time until some man who had seen me in this place would recognize me. I would be discharged and driven into even a deeper life of shame.

"It is impossible to even contemplate such a thing.

"When a woman falls, she falls never to rise again. The thoughts of her evil life are forever a menace to her. They pursue her constantly. She never can resume her former sphere in life."

"Isn't there anything that I can do to cause you to come with me and do right?" asked the reporter.

"There is nothing that anyone can do. What I am now I will always be," she replied.

"Won't you at least meet me away from this awful place and try to spend at least part of your evenings in the respectable way to which you were accustomed?" was asked.

"I will meet you where no one would recognize either you or I," was the reply. "I would not disgrace you by having anyone know me.

"You will not meet the little girl you knew, though. Henceforth you must meet a fallen woman, a woman who sells her flesh, pound by pound, to human vultures. You had best change your mind. For myself, I would be delighted to be with you, but the old memories are painful. I will see you but you must never come here for me."

When the reporter left the sin-cursed place, there were tears in his eyes. To him it was as though he were deserting his own sister to the ravages of a pack of wolves.

Half a block away from the place he paused in deep thought. Should he go at once to her parents and tell them of the finding of their daughter, that she was alive?

He knew they would gladly receive her back, that any and all of her wrongs would be overlooked. He thought of their great love for her, of their deep grief in her death.

But as he thought, he could see a fireside in a city but a few hundred miles distant. Side by side sat a couple. The man was a personage slightly bent, as though bowed down with some grief in the middle of life. The woman's hair was tinged with gray. Her motherly face was lit by a radiant smile, as though she were dreaming of something heavenly.

He could see them clasp hands and sit for hours dreaming of the happiness of but a few months before. Then the father would rise, and, walking across the room, caress some tiny trinket, such as gladdens the heart of a girl. He would pick up a picture, that of a beautiful, laughing girl, radiant in the innocence of the unknowing girl. Long he would gaze at it. Then imprinting a kiss on the face of the picture, he would lay it carefully back in its place. They were happy in the thought that their child was in a better world—of that fact they had no doubt.

The reporter's mind was quickly made up.

"It is better so," he half muttered. "It is better so."

Slowly he retraced his steps past the den where he had found her. An automobile had just come to a stop at the curb. Several well dressed men, in the last stages of intoxication, staggered from the car. Swearing and cursing, they mounted the steps of the house. The door was opened to admit them. From the house came the wild scream of a drunken woman mingled with the coarser yells of drunken men.

Then the door closed.

CHAPTER II.

The Tragedy of the "Want Ad."

In April, 1909, a peculiarly worded advertisement appeared in the personal columns of the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Tribune. It was worded as follows:

Traveling Companion: Widow preparing for extended tour of Europe wants to engage young lady as traveling companion and secretary. Must be young, beautiful, fascinating and accomplished. All expenses and suitable salary. Z 14, Tribune.

The advertisement was what is known in newspaper parlance as a "blind" or keyed ad. It did not give any street address, letters of application being sent to the newspaper and there held for the advertiser.

A young Chicago girl read the advertisement and answered it. In her letter of application she said that she had been called beautiful by her friends, that she spoke several languages, that she was convent bred and that she had previously traveled extensively. She also stated her age, which was 22.

The girl inclosed her address in the letter and said that, if considered favorably, she would be pleased to call upon the "widow."

The young Chicago girl was all that she declared herself to be. Her beauty was a matter beyond dispute. Her charm of manner and her accomplishments were on a plane with her innocence and purity.

The day following the mailing of the letter a caller was announced at the young lady's home. The caller was an elderly woman. She was dressed in black. Her adornment was rich. It bespoke an apparent command of wealth. The woman's language and general demeanor was that of marked social standing. She gave her name as "Schwartz."

To the young girl she made known the fact that she was the authoress of the advertisement which the young lady had answered in the papers. She said that her home was in southern California. She said that her husband had been a very wealthy resident of California and that most of her life had been spent in her own home. She said her husband had died a few months before, leaving her alone with no relatives and practically no friends in the world.

"I have always been a home body," she said. "My life was wrapped up in my home and my husband. When he died there seemed nothing else on earth to live for. God did not see fit to bless us with children. The death of my husband left me prostrated. The first illness of my life came then. Doctors told me that unless I sought a change in travel that I might drag out many long years alone as an invalid.

"I have all the money I know what to do with. When the physicians told me to leave the scene of my sorrows, and to leave at once, I packed hurriedly and departed from Los Angeles. I have had no time to think until I reached Chicago.

"Now that I am