There was no one, with the exception of Cousin Jimmy, of whom she could beg, and to beg of him would be a tacit confession that she had failed as a breadwinner.

In Mrs.Carr's last letter Charley had appeared in a new light as a reformed character, a devoted attendant at church, and an enthusiastic convert to the prohibition party; and Gabriella had gathered from her mother's pious rambling that, like other sinners who have outlived temptation, he was devoting his middle years to a violent crusade against the moderate indulgences of the abstemious.

But Charley, she felt, was out of the question.

She would die before she would stoop to ask help of a man she had despised as heartily as she had once despised Charley.

She must sink or swim by her own strength, not by another's.
"I wonder why I did it ?" she asked herself again, and again she could not answer the question.