"Yes," said the girl, "I have, but--" she broke off suddenly. Then she said, "My husband has left me, and the child not eight weeks old. Isn't that hard luck? Left me--for another! Oh, I know it's an old story, but it's new enough to me. God knows it's new enough to me!"
Von Barwig comforted her as well as he could, and when the girl quieted down she told him her story. It was conventional enough. She had run away from home and married a young fellow she met in a Harlem dance hall. She knew nothing of his people or of his early life. She simply married him, and now he had deserted her after the arrival of her child. There was nothing uncommon or strange either in her story or her way of telling it. Von Barwig had heard such stories hundreds of times, but to him the pathos of the situation lay in the inability of the young mother to feed the crying child owing to her distracted mental condition. Further, the fact that she was sufficiently acquainted with the laws of physiology to realise this truth showed Von Barwig that the girl had received a better education than most of her class.
"A little," the girl replied listlessly. "Oh, God, if the child would only stop crying," she said as she kissed and fondled the babe. Then she sighed. "I feel better now," she said, "much better. Perhaps in a little while I shall be myself again." Von Barwig handed her a five dollar bill.
"You will buy the little fellow something with the compliments of a stranger. What do you call him?" he said quickly, for he saw that his generous action had brought tears to the girl's eyes and he wanted to prevent her crying. "He's a fine little chap," he added.
"It's a girl," she said, the ghost of a smile coming into her face. "Her name is Annie. I'll take this for her sake. Thank you, sir, thank you!"
"A little girl," he said in his low, gentle voice; "a little girl! I had a little girl once," and he stifled the sob that came into his throat. The girl heard this sob and squeezed his hand gently in sympathy.
"Let me tell you a story, my child, it may help you to bear the burden of life, as your story has helped me!"
Von Barwig reseated himself by the girl's side and recounted to her the whole story of his miserable unhappy existence from beginning to end. This stranger was the only one to whom he had ever told it all. The girl was intensely interested, and it had the desired effect of taking her thoughts off her own misery. When Von Barwig took his leave of her an hour or so later, the colour had come into her waxen cheeks and she was quietly nursing her baby.