What will become of me now?  Oh, if you’ll only come back you can have all the money—­half of it.  Oh, give me back my money.  Give me back my money, and I’ll forgive you.  You can leave me then if you want to.  Oh, my money.  Mac, Mac, you’ve gone for good.  You don’t love me any more, and now I’m a beggar.  My money’s gone, my husband’s gone, gone, gone, gone!”

Her grief was terrible.  She dug her nails into her scalp, and clutching the heavy coils of her thick black hair tore it again and again.  She struck her forehead with her clenched fists.  Her little body shook from head to foot with the violence of her sobbing.  She ground her small teeth together and beat her head upon the floor with all her strength.

Her hair was uncoiled and hanging a tangled, dishevelled mass far below her waist; her dress was torn; a spot of blood was upon her forehead; her eyes were swollen; her cheeks flamed vermilion from the fever that raged in her veins.  Old Miss Baker found her thus towards five o’clock the next morning.

What had happened between one o’clock and dawn of that fearful night Trina never remembered.  She could only recall herself, as in a picture, kneeling before her broken and rifled trunk, and then—­weeks later, so it seemed to her—­she woke to find herself in her own bed with an iced bandage about her forehead and the little old dressmaker at her side, stroking her hot, dry palm.

The facts of the matter were that the German woman who lived below had been awakened some hours after midnight by the sounds of Trina’s weeping.  She had come upstairs and into the room to find Trina stretched face downward upon the floor, half-conscious and sobbing, in the throes of an hysteria for which there was no relief.  The woman, terrified, had called her husband, and between them they had got Trina upon the bed.  Then the German woman happened to remember that Trina had friends in the big flat near by, and had sent her husband to fetch the retired dressmaker, while she herself remained behind to undress Trina and put her to bed.  Miss Baker had come over at once, and began to cry herself at the sight of the dentist’s poor little wife.  She did not stop to ask what the trouble was, and indeed it would have been useless to attempt to get any coherent explanation from Trina at that time.  Miss Baker had sent the German woman’s husband to get some ice at one of the “all-night” restaurants of the street; had kept cold, wet towels on Trina’s head; had combed and recombed her wonderful thick hair; and had sat down by the side of the bed, holding her hot hand, with its poor maimed fingers, waiting patiently until Trina should be able to speak.

Towards morning Trina awoke—­or perhaps it was a mere regaining of consciousness—­looked a moment at Miss Baker, then about the room until her eyes fell upon her trunk with its broken lock.  Then she turned over upon the pillow and began to sob again.  She refused to answer any of the little dressmaker’s questions, shaking her head violently, her face hidden in the pillow.