Before this man, who had sprung from poverty and dirt, who had struggled up by his own force, overcoming and triumphing, fighting and winning, fighting and holding, fighting and losing, but always fighting--before this man, who had been born in a cellar, she felt suddenly humbled.

Without friends, without knowledge, except the bitter knowledge of the streets, he had fought his fight, and had kept untarnished a certain hardy standard of honour.

Beside this tremendous achievement she weighed his roughness, his ignorance of books and of the superficial conventions, and she realized how little these things really mattered--how little any outside things mattered in the final judgment of life.

She thought of George, dying a drunkard's death in the room at the end of the hail--of George whose way had been smoothed for him from birth, who had taken everything that he had wanted.
"I wish there was something I could do for you--something to help you," she said impetuously.

"But I never saw any one who seemed to need help so little." His face brightened, and she saw that her words had brought a touching wistfulness into his eyes.
"Well, if you'd let me come and talk to you sometimes" he answered shyly.