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desperate plight when she saw one.  It was how she felt every day of her life.  And she couldn’t resist trying to rescue Hazel from whatever it was she was hiding from.
    “Do you need help?” Sadie had asked as she approached the small table.
    Sadie lifted the veil from her hat so the woman could see her face.  When in public, Sadie didn’t dare reveal her true identity in case it brought shame to Madame Eleanor’s business.  Prostitutes, after all, were to be discrete when entertaining men in the community who didn’t want to tarnish their reputation by being seen entering a brothel.  In that case, Madame arranged a private meeting in a place of their choosing and dressed the prostitute in ladylike attire with a veil to conceal her identity, lest another man who didn’t mind frequenting a brothel recognize her and expose the secret rendezvous. Only prostitutes Madame trusted not to run off were allowed to go to such meetings, and Sadie welcomed the chance to get out into polite society, if even for an hour.
    Now, as she watched Hazel wipe the tears from her eyes with a lace handkerchief, Sadie felt a pull to go to the woman and help her, to make sure she never ended up in a situation Sadie had been forced into.  Hazel looked much too fragile to handle such a hardship.
    “Do you need help?” Sadie repeated, this time using a louder voice among the talk going on around them.
    Hazel looked up at her and then scanned the room.
    Sadie quickly put down her veil and glanced behind her but didn’t see anyone who seemed interested in them.  She turned back to Hazel and lifted the veil.  “Do you need money?  I can give you some.”
    The restaurant owner had just paid her for her services and had left a significant tip, one in which s he had planned to hide from Madame but could give to this poor woman who had an innocence about her.
    Hazel shook her head.  “No.”
    Sadie waited for a moment, quickly debating her options.  She could leave and never see Hazel again, but somehow that didn’t seem right.  Though Hazel hadn’t extended the invitation, she sat across from her and leaned forward, careful to keep her voice low so none of the other patrons would overhear her.  “You’re not from here.  I can tell that from your Southern accent.  I don’t mean to pry in your business, but you have no male companion and seem scared.  Those are two things that could get you caught up in something you don’t want to be in.” Like a brothel, but she didn’t dare add that.  The poor thing was frightened enough as it was.
    “I know.” She wiped more tears away.  “I’m trying to get to a young man who posted a mail-order bride ad.  I have to get there.”
    “I don’t understand,” Sadie whispered.  “You said you have money.  What’s stopping you from getting there?”
    Hazel opened her mouth to speak but then she coughed, and one cough led to another and another.  People started turning their attention t o stare at them.  Mindful of Madame, Sadie quickly covered her face with the veil.  Rising to her feet, she asked for a glass of water and a man sitting at a nearby table handed her one.
    She gave it to Hazel.  “Here, drink this.  It should help.”
    Hazel tried to take a sip but couldn’t stop coughing long enough to swallow any water.  She placed the handkerchief up to her mouth and when she lowered it, Sadie saw the blood on the cloth.
    Alarmed, she ran over to Hazel and called out for someone to get a doctor.

Chapter Five
     
    “Doctor…  Someone get a doctor…”
    Al stirred as his wife murmured for a doctor in her sleep.  It took him a moment to wake up and realize she was only dreaming.  He turned toward her and studied her in the morning light that filtered through the slit in the drapes and landed across her forehead.  She had left his arms at some point in the middle of the night and was curled up on her side, hugging her legs and furrowing her eyebrows.
    Leaning over