There might be an address. Maybe her folks ought to be notified if she was off here in a great city alone.

So when he reached his room in the hotel, he took the letter out of his pocket, half reverently, and opened it.

It was only a torn half sheet of cheap note paper, and just a few lines written on it at that, no name signed either.

Dear Child,

Sam Fletcher is going down to the village, so I write a line to let you know the money came safely. Your Grandfather says, ‘Bless the child,’ and tell her not to send any more now. We’ll make out. Get yourself a good warm winter coat. His knee is a little better now, we think. Don’t overwork

Lovingly,

Grandmother

P.S. Is that man you work for all right? It kind of worries me what you say about him. Maybe you better try for another job

Well, there wasn’t any help here. No date except the blurred postmark, and no name of the town or people. Obviously he couldn’t let that grandfather and grandmother know. He couldn’t go all over the state of Vermont asking for Margaret McLaren’s grandparents.

He put the letter slowly back into the envelope, feeling guilty that he had read it at all, even though he had a good motive in doing so. Now he had laid bare some more of her troubles. Poor kid! She certainly was up against it. And to have a heartless old bird of a landlady like that, with all the rest! No sympathy nor help to be had from her! He shut his lips grimly as he thought of her. Probably he ought not to have paid that bill till he knew more about it, but there was a kind of satisfaction at the memory of the greedy astonishment in the old woman’s face as she took the bills in her hand. He really had got fifteen dollars’ worth of pleasure out of the look on her hard, old, selfish face. But poor devil, she probably was hard up, too! What a lot of people seemed to be hard up and to take it so hard! Why he had been hard up all his life, and now that he had plenty, he didn’t quite know what to do with it. Was he going to find a way of happiness with it, or was he only going to waste it all and then have to go back to work again? Well, if he did, work no longer had a terror for him. He knew how to go without. Though he never had been hungry. That poor little, white-faced girl had been hungry! Starved, the doctor said. How terrible! Would she ever come out of it all, and would there be a way for him to do something for her? Perhaps she was going to make a terrible row about this hospital room. You couldn’t tell. Well, he would get that fixed the first thing in the morning, so that the room was a genuine free one. He wished he knew how she was.

Early in the morning, his telephone rang, causing him to waken sharply to sudden anxiety.

“Is this Mr. Sterling?” Well, this is Miss Gowen, the nurse. I just wanted to tell you that our patient rested nicely all night, took her medicine and nourishment like a lamb, and is still sleeping. The doctor came in in the night and says she is doing well. He says she may sleep right on through the day—you can’t tell.