His resolutions soared to great heights, only to succumb to chilly blasts that sent them shrivelled back to the lowest depths. What could he do against a man who had all the money that Fairfax possessed? What could he offer for Nellie, now that some one else had put a stupendous price on her? He remembered reading about an oil painting that originally sold for five hundred francs and afterward brought forty thousand dollars. Somehow he likened Nellie to a picture, with the reservation that he didn't believe any painting on earth was worth forty thousand dollars. If there was such a thing, he had never seen it.

Then he began to think of poor Nellie cast helpless among the tempters. She was like a child among voracious beasts of prey. No wonder she felt hard toward him! He was to blame, terribly to blame. In the highest, most exalted state of remorse he wept, not once but often. His poor little Nellie!

In one of these strange ever-growing flights of combined self-reproach and self-exaltation he so vividly imagined himself as a rescuer, as an able-bodied defender against all the ills and evils that beset her, that the fancy took the shape of positive determination. He made up his mind to take her off the stage, back to Blakeville, and to an environment so sweet and pure that her life would be one long season of joy and happiness.

With the growth of this resolution he began to plan his own personal rehabilitation. First of all, he would let his face recover its natural shape; then he would cultivate muscle and brawn at the emporium of Professor Flaherty; moreover, he would devote considerable attention to his own personal appearance and to the habits of the "men about town." He would fight the tempters with their own weapons—the corkscrew, the lobster pick, the knife and fork, and the nut-splitter!

He did not emerge from the house for five days. By that time he was fairly presentable.

It was Annie's day out, so he took Phoebe for a little walk. As for Phoebe, she never passed a certain door upstairs without kicking at it with first one, then the other of her tiny feet, in revenge for the way it had hurt her father by remaining open so that he could bump into it on that bloody, terrifying day. She sent little darts of exquisite pain through him by constantly alluding to the real devastator as "that nice Mr. Fairy-fax." It was her pleasure to regard him as a great big fairy who had promised her in secret that she would some day be like Cinderella and have all the riches the slipper showered upon that poor little lady.

As they were returning home after a stroll through a rather remote street, they came upon Mr. Butler, who was down on his knees fixing something or other about his automobile. Harvey thought it a good opportunity to start his crusade against New York City.

"Hello," he said, halting. Butler looked up. He was mad as a wet hen to begin with.

"Hello," he snarled, resuming his work.

"I've been thinking about that little——"

"Get out of the light, will you?"

Harvey moved over, dragging Phoebe after him.

"That little scheme of ours to dine together in town some night. You remember we talked about it——"

"No, I don't," snapped Butler.

"We might lunch together early next week. I know a nice little place on Seventh Avenue where you get fine spaghetti. We——"

"I'm booked for a whole month of luncheons," said Butler, sitting back on his heels to stare at this impossible person. "Can't join you."

"Some other time, then," said Harvey, waving his hand genially. "Your wife home yet?"

Butler got upon his feet.

"Say," said he, aggressively, "do you know she's heard about that idiotic trip of mine to town that night? Fairfax told everybody, and somebody's wife told Mrs. Butler. It got me in a devil of a mess."

"You don't say so!"

"Yes, I do say so. Next time you catch me—But, what's the use?" He turned to his work with an expressive shrug of his shoulders.

"I'll have my wife explain everything to Mrs. Butler the first time she comes out," said Harvey, more bravely than he felt. He could not help wondering when Nellie would come out.

"It isn't necessary," Butler made haste to assure him.

Harvey was silent for a moment.

"Fixing your automobile?" he asked, unwilling to give it up without another effort.

"What do you suppose I'm doing?"

"It's wonderful how fast one of these little one-seated cars can go," mused Harvey. "Cheap, too; ain't they?"

Butler faced him again, malice in his glance.

"It's not in it with that big green car your wife uses," he said, distinctly.

"Big green——" began Harvey, blankly. Then he understood. He swallowed hard, straightened Phoebe's hat with infinite care and gentleness, and looking over Butler's head, managed to say, quite calmly:—"It used to be blue. We've had it painted. Come along, Phoebe, Mr. Butler's busy. We mustn't bother him. So long, Butler."

"So long," said Mr. Butler, suddenly intent upon finding something in the tool-box.

The pair moved on. Out of the corner of his eye Butler watched them turn the corner below.

"Poor little guy!" he said to the monkey wrench.

The big green car! All the way home that juggernaut green car ran through, over, and around him. He could see nothing else, think of nothing else. A big green car!

That evening he got from Bridget the address of her brother, Professor Flaherty, the physical trainer and body builder.

In the morning he examined himself in the mirror, a fever of restlessness and impatience afflicting him with the desire to be once more presentable to the world. He had been encouraged by the fact that Butler had offered no comment on the black rims around his eyes. They must be disappearing.

With his chin in his hands he sat across the room staring at his reflection in the glass, a gloomy, desolate figure.

"It wouldn't be wise to apply for a job until these eyes are all right again," he was saying to himself, bitterly. "Nobody would hire a man with a pair of black eyes and a busted lip—especially a druggist. I'll simply have to wait a few days longer. Heigh-ho! To-morrow's Sunday again. I—I wonder if Nellie will be out to see us."

But Nellie did not come out. She journeyed far and fast in a big green car, but it was in another direction.

Thursday of the next week witnessed the sallying forth of Harvey What's-His-Name, moved to energy by a long dormant and mournfully acquired ambition. The delay had been irksome.

Nellie's check for the month's expenses had arrived in the mail that morning. He folded it carefully and put it away in his pocketbook, firmly resolved not to present it at the bank. He intended to return it to her with the announcement that he had secured a position and hereafter would do the providing.

Spick and span in his best checked suit, his hat tilted airily over one ear, he stepped briskly down the street. You wouldn't have known him, I am sure, with his walking-stick in one hand, his light spring overcoat over the other arm. A freshly cleaned pair of grey gloves, smelling of gasoline, covered his hands. On the lapel of his coat loomed a splendid yellow chrysanthemum. Regular football weather, he had said.

The first drug store he came to he entered with an air of confidence. No, the proprietor said, he didn't need an assistant. He went on to the next. The same polite answer, with the additional information, in response to a suggestion by the applicant, that the soda-water season was over. Undaunted, he stopped in at the restaurant in the block below. The proprietor of the place looked so sullen and forbidding that Harvey lost his courage and instead of asking outright for a position as manager he asked for a cup of coffee and a couple of fried eggs. As the result of this extra and quite superfluous breakfast he applied for the job.

The man looked him over scornfully.

"I'm the manager and the whole works combined," he said. "I need a dish-washer, come to think of it. Four a week and board. You can go to work to-day if——"

But Harvey stalked out, swinging his cane manfully.

"Well, God knows I've tried hard enough," he said to himself, resignedly, as he headed for the railway station. It was still six minutes of train time. "I'll write to Mr. Davis out in Blakeville this evening. He told me that my place would always be open to me."

It was nearly one o'clock when he appeared at Nellie's apartment. Rachel admitted him. He hung his hat and coat on the rack, deposited his cane in the corner, and sauntered coolly into the little sitting-room, the maid looking on in no little wonder and uneasiness.

"Where's my wife?" he asked, taking up the morning paper from the centre table and preparing to make himself at home in the big armchair.

"She's out to lunch, sir."

He laid the paper down.

"Where?"

Rachel mentioned a prominent downtown cafe affected by the profession.

"Will you have lunch here, sir?" she inquired.

"No," said he, determinedly. "Thank you just the same. I'm lunching downtown. I—I thought perhaps she'd like to join me."

Rachel rang for the elevator and he departed, amiably doffing his hat to her as he dropped to the floor below.

At one of the popular corner tables in the big cafe a party of men and women were seated, seven or eight in all. Nellie Duluth had her back toward the other tables in the room. It was a bit of modesty that she always affected. She did not like being stared at. Besides, she could hold her audience to the very end, so to speak, for all in the place knew she was there and were willing to wait until she condescended to face them in the process of departure.

It was a very gay party, comprising a grand-opera soprano and a tenor of world-wide reputation, as well as three or four very well-known New Yorkers. Manifestly, it was Fairfax's luncheon. The crowd at this table was observed by all the neck-craners in the place. Every one was telling every one else what every one knew:—"That's Nellie Duluth over there."

As the place began to clear out and tables were being abandoned here and there, a small man in a checked suit appeared in the doorway. An attendant took his hat and coat away from him while he was gazing with kaleidoscopic instability of vision upon the gay scene before him. He had left his walking-stick in a street car, a circumstance which delayed him a long time, for, on missing it, he waited at a corner in the hope of recognising the motorman on his return trip up Madison Avenue.

The head-waiter was bowing before him and murmuring, "How many, sir?"

"How many what?" mumbled Harvey, with a start.

"In your party?" asked the man, not half so politely and with a degree of distance in his attitude. It did not look profitable.

"Oh! Only one, sir. Just a sandwich and a cup of coffee, I think."

There was a little table away over in the corner sandwiched between the doors of entrance and egress for laden waiters and 'bus boys. Toward this a hastily summoned second or third assistant conducted the newcomer. Twice during the process of traversing this illimitable space Harvey bumped against chairs occupied by merry persons who suddenly became crabbed and asked him who the devil he was stumbling over.

A blonde, flushed woman who sat opposite Nellie at the table in the corner caught sight of him as he passed. She stared hard for a moment and then allowed a queer expression to come into her eyes.

"For Heaven's sake!" she exclaimed, with considerable force.

"What's the matter? Your husband?" demanded Nellie Duluth, with a laugh.

"No," she said, staring harder. "Why, I can't be mistaken. Yes, as I live, it's Mr.—Mr. What's-His-Name, your husband, Nellie."

"Don't turn 'round, Nellie," whispered Fairfax, who sat beside her.

"I don't believe it!" cried Nellie, readily. "It isn't possible for Harvey to be here. Where is he?" she demanded in the same breath, looking over her shoulder.

Harvey was getting out of the way of a 'bus boy and a stack of chinaware and in the way of a waiter with a tray of peach Melbas when she espied him.

"For the land's sake!" she gasped, going clear back to Blakeville for the expression. "I don't dare look, Carrie. Tell me, has he got a—a fairy with him? Break it gently."

"Fairy?" sneered Fairfax, suddenly uncomfortable. "Why, he's lost in the wood. He's alone on a desert isle. What the deuce is he doing here?"

Harvey gave his order to the disdainful waiter and then settled back in his chair for the first deliberate look around the room in quest of his wife.

Their eyes met. She had turned halfway round in her chair and was looking at him with wide-open, unbelieving eyes. He felt himself suddenly tied hand and foot to the chair. Now that he had found her he could do no more than stare at her in utter bewilderment. He had come tilting at windmills.

The flush deepened in her cheek as she turned her attention to the dessert that had just been set down before her. She was very quiet, in marked contrast to her mood of the moment before.

Fairfax made a remark which set the others to laughing. She did not smile, but toyed nervously with the dessert fork. Under cover of the laughter he leaned over and whispered, an anxious, troubled note in his voice:—

"I'll call the head waiter and have him put out before he does anything crazy."

"Put out?" she repeated. "Why, what do you think he'd try to do?"

"He's got an ugly look in his eye. I tell you, he'll create a scene. That's what he's here for. You remember what happened——"

She laughed shrilly. "He won't shoot any one," she said in his ear. "Harvey create a scene! Oh, that's rich!"

"He hasn't forgotten the thrashing I gave him. He has been brooding over it, Nellie." Fairfax was livid about the eyes.

"Well, I respect him for trying to thrash you, even though he got the worst of it." She looked again in Harvey's direction. He was still staring steadily at her. "He's all alone over there and he's miserable. I can't stand it. I'm going over to sit with him."

As she arose Fairfax reached out and grasped her arm.

"Don't be a fool," he said, in dismay.

"I won't," she replied, sweetly. "Trust me. So long, people. I'm going over to have coffee with my husband."

If the occupants of the big cafe were surprised to see Nellie Duluth make her way over to the table and sit down with the queer little person in checks, not so Harvey. He arose to greet her and would have kissed her if she had not restrained him. He was gratified, overjoyed, but not surprised.

"Hello!" she said, sharply, to cover the inward disquiet that possessed her. She was looking intently into his eyes as if searching for something she dreaded.

"Hello!" was his response. He was still a trifle dazed.

She sat down opposite him. Before she could think of anything further to say the head waiter rushed up to inquire if Miss Duluth and her friend wouldn't prefer a table at one of the windows.

"No, this will do," she said, thankful for the interruption.

"We are doing very nicely," said Harvey, rather pompously, adding in a loud voice of authority:—"Tell that fellow to hustle my luncheon along, will you?" Then, turning to Nellie, he said:—"You don't look as though you'd ever been sick a day in your life, Nellie."

She laughed uncomfortably. "How are you, Harvey? And Phoebe?"

"Fine. Never better. Why don't you come out and see us occasionally?"

"May I order a cup of black coffee?" she asked, ignoring the question. She was sorely puzzled.

"Have a big one," he urged, signalling a waiter.

Her curiosity conquered. "What in Heaven's name brought you here, Harvey?"

He told her of the word Rachel had given him. Nellie made a mental note of the intention to speak plainly to Rachel.

"Who are your friends?" he asked. Just then he caught a glimpse of Fairfax's face. He turned very cold.

"Mr. Fairfax is giving a luncheon for two of the grand-opera people," she explained.

He forced his courage. "I don't want you to have anything more to do with that man," he said. "He's a scoundrel."

"Now, don't be silly," she cried. "What train are you going out on?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll stay in. I'll go up to your flat, I guess, for a couple of days. Phoebe's all right. She's over the diphtheria now——"

"Diphtheria?" gasped Nellie, wide-eyed, overlooking his other declaration, which, by the way, was of small moment.

"Almost died, poor kiddie."

She flared up in an instant. "Why wasn't I told? What were you thinking of, you little fool?"

"If you had taken the trouble to come out to Tarrytown, you could have found out for yourself," he retorted, coolly. "Now, see here, Nellie, I've come in to see you and to have a very plain talk with you. So just hold your horses. Don't fly off the handle. I am the head of this family and I'm going to boss it from this time on."

"You——" she began, in a furious little shriek, her eyes blazing. She caught herself up in time. Two or three people nearby looked up at the sound of her raised voice. She lowered it to a shrill, intense half-whisper. "What do you mean by coming here in this way? Everybody is laughing at me. You make me ridiculous. I won't stand for it; do you hear?"

He was colder if possible than before, but he was resolute.

"We've got to have an understanding, the sooner the better," he said, quietly.

"Yes, you're right," she repeated; "the sooner the better."

"We can't talk here," he said, suddenly conscious that the eyes of many were upon them. "Go over and ask that infernal sneak to excuse you, and we'll go up to the flat."

"I'm going motoring this aft——"

"You do as I tell you!" said he, in a strange voice.

"Why, Harvey——" she stammered, catching her breath.

"When you've had your coffee," he added.

She sipped her coffee in silence, in wonder, in bitter resentment. He munched the club sandwich and sucked the coffee through his thin moustache with a vehemence that grated on her nerves terribly.

"I've had all I want," she said, suddenly putting the little cup down with a crash.

"Then go over and tell 'em you've got to go home."

She crossed the room, red-faced and angry. He watched her as she made an announcement to the party, saw them laugh uproariously, and smiled in triumph over the evidence of annoyance on the part of Fairfax. Nellie was whispering something close to the big man's ear, and he was shaking his head vigorously. Then she waved her hand to the party and started away. Fairfax arose to follow her. As he did so, Harvey came to his feet and advanced. The big man stopped short, with a look of actual alarm in his eyes, and went back to his seat, hastily motioning to the head waiter.

Five minutes later Miss Duluth emerged from the cafe, followed by the little man in the checked suit.

An attendant blew his whistle and called out down the line of waiting motors:—

"Mr. Fairfax's car up!"

"Get me a taxi," ordered Nellie, hastily.

The man betrayed his surprise. She was obliged to repeat the order.

"What does a taxi to—to our place cost?" demanded Harvey, feeling in his pocket.

"Never mind," she snapped. "I'll pay for it."

"No, you won't," he asserted. "I raised seventeen dollars yesterday on the watch mother gave me. It's my own money, Nellie, remember that."

Rachel was plainly amazed when the couple walked into the apartment. The two at once resumed the conversation they had carried on so vigorously in the taxicab on the way up from downtown. Nellie did not remove her hat, sharply commanding Rachel to leave the room.

"No," she said, "she simply has to go to the convent. She'll be safe there, no matter how things turn out for you and me, Harve, I insist on that."

"Things are going to turn out all right for us, Nellie," he protested, a plaintive note in his voice. It was easily to be seen which had been the dominating force in the ride home.

"Now, you've got to be reasonable, Harve," she said, firmly. "We can't go on as we have been going. Something's just got to happen."

"Well, doggone it, haven't I said that I'll agree to your trip to Europe? I won't put a stop to that. I see your point clearly. The managers think it wise for you to do a bit of studying abroad. I can see that. I'm not going to be mean. Three months' hard work over there will get you into grand-opera sure. But that has nothing to do with Phoebe. She can go to Blakeville with me, and then when you come back next fall I'll have a job here in New York and we'll——"

"Don't talk foolishness," she blurted out. "You've said that three or four times. First you wanted me to go back to Blakeville to live. You insisted on it. What do you think I am? Why, I wouldn't go back to Blakeville if Heaven was suddenly discovered to be located there instead of up in the sky. That's settled. No Blakeville for me. Or Phoebe either. Do you suppose I'm going to have that child grow up like—like"—she changed the word and continued—"like a yap?"

"All I ask is that you will give me a chance to show what I can do," he said, earnestly.

"You can do that just as well with Phoebe in the convent, as I've said before."

"She's as much my child as she is yours," he proclaimed, stoutly.

"Then you ought to be willing to do the sensible thing by her."

"Why, good Lord, Nell, she's only five," he groaned. "She'll die of homesickness."

"Nonsense! She'll forget both of us in a month and be happy."

"She won't forget me!" he exclaimed.

"Well, I've said my say," she announced, pacing the floor. "Suppose we agree to disagree. Well, isn't it better to have her out of the mess?"

"I won't give her up, derned if I do!"

"Say, don't you know if it comes to a question of law, the Court will give her to me?"

"I'm not trying to take her away from you."

"You're trying to ruin my career."

"Fairfax has put all this into your head, Nellie, dear. He's a low-down rascal."

"He's my friend, and a good one, too. I don't believe he offered you that money to agree to a separation."

"Darn it all, you can still see the scar on my lip. That ought to prove something. If I hadn't stumbled, I'd have knocked him silly. As it was, he kicked me in the face when I was down."

"He told me you assaulted him without cause."

"He lied."

"Well, that's neither here nor there. I'm sorry you were beaten up so badly. It wasn't right, I'll admit. He said you were plucky, Harve. I couldn't believe him at first."

His face brightened.

"You give me a chance and I'll show you how plucky I am!" he cried. "Come on now, Nellie, let's make a fresh start."

She was silent for a long time. At heart she was fair and honest. She had lost her love and respect for the little man, but, after all, was that altogether his fault? She was sorry for him.

"Well, I'll think it over," she said, at last.

"I'll write to Mr. Davis to-night!" he cried, encouraged.

"All right. I hope he'll give you a job," said she, also brightening, but for an entirely different reason.

"You'll give up this awful thing of—of separating; won't you?"

"I'll promise one thing, Harvey," said she, suddenly sincere. "I won't do anything until I come back from the road. That's fair, isn't it? And I'll tell you what else I'll do. I will let Phoebe stay with you in Tarrytown until the end of the tour—in May."

"But I'm going to Blakeville," he protested.

"No," said she, firmly, "I won't agree to that. Either you stay in Tarrytown or she goes to the convent."

"I can't get work in Tarrytown."

"You can tell Mr. Davis you will come out to Blakeville in time for the opening of the soda-water season. I'll do the work for the family till then. That's all I'll consent to. I'll ask for a legal separation if you don't agree to that."

"I—I'll think it over," he said, feebly; "I'll stay here with you for a couple of days, and——"

"You will do nothing of the sort!" she cried. "Do you suppose I'm going to spoil my chances for a separation, if I want to apply, by letting you live in the same house with me? Why, that would be wasting the two months already gone."

He did not comprehend, and he was afraid to ask for an explanation. The term "failure to provide" was the only one he could get through his head; "desertion" was out of the question. His brow was wet with the sweat of a losing conflict. He saw that he would have to accept her ultimatum and trust to luck to provide a way out of the difficulty. Time would justify him, he was confident. In the meantime, he would ease his conscience by returning the check, knowing full well that it would not be accepted. He would then take it, of course, with reservations. Every dollar was to be paid back when he obtained a satisfactory position.

He determined, however, to extract a promise from her before giving in.

"I will consent, Nellie, on the condition that you stop seeing this fellow Fairfax and riding around in his big green car. I won't stand for that."

Nellie smiled, more to herself than to him. She had Fairfax in the meshes. He was safe. The man was madly in love with her. The instant she was freed from Harvey he stood ready to become her husband—Fairfax, with all his money and all his power.

And that is precisely what she was aiming at. She could afford to smile, but somehow she was coming to feel that this little man who was now her husband had it in him, after all, to put up a fierce and desperate fight for his own. If he were pushed to the wall he would fight back like a wildcat, and well she knew that there would be disagreeable features in the fray.

"If you are going to talk like that I'll never speak to you again," she said, banishing the smile. "Don't you trust me?"

"Sure," he said, and he meant it. "That's not the point."

"See here, Harve," she said, abruptly putting her hands on his shoulders and looking squarely into his eyes, "I want you to believe me when I say that I am a—a—well, a good woman."

"I believe it," he said, solemnly. Then, as an after-thought, "and I want to say the same thing for myself."

"I've never doubted you," said she, fervently. "Now, go home and let things stand as they are. Write to Mr. Davis to-night."

"I will. I say, won't you give me a kiss?"

She hesitated, still calculating.

"Yes, if you promise not to tell anybody," she said, with mock solemnity. As she expected, he took it seriously.

"Do you suppose I go 'round telling people I've kissed my wife?"

Then she gave him a peck on the cheek and let it go as a kiss.

"When will you be out to see us?"

"Soon, I hope," she said, quickly. "Now go, Harve, I'm going to lie down and rest. Kiss Phoebe for me."

He got to the door. She was fairly pushing him.

"I feel better," he said, taking a long breath.

"So do I," said she.

He paused for a moment to frown in some perplexity.

"Say, Nell, I left my cane in a street car coming down. Do you think it would be worth while to advertise for it?"



CHAPTER V

CHRISTMAS

The weeks went slowly by and Christmas came to the little house in Tarrytown. He had become resigned but not reconciled to Nellie's continued and rather persistent absence, regarding it as the sinister proclamation of her intention to carry out the plan for separation in spite of all that he could do to avert the catastrophe. His devotion to Phoebe was more intense than ever; it had reached the stage of being pathetic.

True to his word, he wrote to Mr. Davis, who in time responded, saying that he could give him a place at the soda fountain in May, but that the wages would of necessity be quite small, owing to the fact that the Greeks had invaded Blakeville with the corner fruit stands and soft-drink fountains. He could promise him eight dollars a week, or ten dollars if he would undertake to come to the store at six A.M. and sweep up, a task now performed by the proprietor himself, who found himself approaching an age and a state of health that craved a feast of luxury and ease hitherto untasted.

Harvey was in considerable doubt as to his ability to live on ten dollars a week and support Phoebe, as well as to begin the task of reimbursing Nellie for her years of sacrifice. Still, it was better than nothing at all, so he accepted Mr. Davis' ten-dollar-a-week offer and sat back to wait for the coming of the first of May.

In the meantime he would give Nellie some return for her money by doing the work now performed by Annie—or, more advisedly speaking, a portion of it. He would conduct Phoebe to the kindergarten and call for her at the close of sessions, besides dressing her in the morning, sewing on buttons for her, undressing her at night, and all such jobs as that, with the result that Annie came down a dollar a week in her wages and took an extra afternoon out. In this way he figured he could save Nellie at least thirty dollars. He also did the janitor's work about the place and looked after the furnace, creating a salvage of three dollars and a half a month. Moreover, instead of buying a new winter suit and replacing his shabby ulster with one more comely and presentable, he decided to wear his fall suit until January and then change off to his old blue serge spring suit, which still seemed far from shiny, so far as he could see.

And so it was that Nellie's monthly check for $150 did very nicely.

Any morning at half-past eight, except Sunday, you could have seen him going down the street with Phoebe at his side, her hand in his, bound for the kindergarten. He carried her little lunch basket and whistled merrily when not engaged in telling her about Santa Claus. She startled him one day by asking:—

"Are you going to be Santy this year, daddy, or is mamma?"

He looked down at the rich little fur coat and muff Nellie had outfitted her with, at the expensive hat and the silk muffler, and sighed.

"If you ask questions, Santy won't come at all," he said, darkly. "He's a mighty cranky old chap, Santy is."

He did not take up physical culture with Professor Flaherty, partly on account of the expense, partly because he found that belabouring cannel coal and shaking down the furnace was more developing than he had expected. Raking the autumn leaves out of the front yard also was harder than he had any idea it would be. He was rather glad it was not the season for the lawn mower.

Down in his heart he hoped that Nellie would come out for Christmas, but he knew there was no chance of it. She would have two performances on that day. He refrained from telling Phoebe until the very last minute that her mother would not be out for the holiday. He hadn't the heart to do it.

He broke the news then by telling the child that her mother was snowbound and couldn't get there. An opportune fall of snow the day before Christmas gave him the inspiration.

He set up the little Christmas tree in the back parlour, assisted by Bridget and Annie, after Phoebe had gone to bed on Christmas Eve. She had urged him to read to her about Tiny Tim, but he put her off with the announcement that Santa was likely to be around early on account of the fine sleighing, and if he saw that she wasn't asleep in bed he might skip the house entirely.

The expressman, in delivering several boxes from town that afternoon, had said to his helper:—

"That little fellow that came to the door was Nellie Duluth's husband, Mr.—Mr.——Say, look on the last page there and see what his name is. He's a cheap skate. A dime! Wot do you think of that?" He held up the dime Harvey had given him and squinted at it as if it were almost too small to be seen with the naked eye.

Nellie sent "loads" of presents to Phoebe—toys, books, candies, fruits, pretty dresses, a velvet coat, a tiny pair of opera glasses, strings of beads, bracelets, rings—dozens of things calculated to set a child mad with delight. There were pocketbooks, handkerchiefs, squirrel stoles and muffs for each of the servants, a box of cigars for the postman, another for the milkman, and a five-dollar bill for the janitor.

There was nothing for Harvey.

He looked for a long time at the envelope containing the five-dollar bill, an odd little smile creeping into his eyes. He was the janitor, he remembered. After a moment of indecision he slipped the bill into another envelope, which he marked "Charity" and laid aside until morning brought the mendicant who, with bare fingers and frosted lips, always came to play his mournful clarionet in front of the house.

Surreptitiously he searched the two big boxes carefully, inwardly hoping that she had not forgotten—nay, ignored—him. But there was nothing there, not even a Christmas card! It was the first Christmas she had....

The postman brought a small box addressed to Phoebe. The handwriting was strange, but he thought nothing of it. He thought it was nice of Butler to remember his little one and lamented the fact that he had not bought something for the little Butlers, of whom there were seven. He tied a red ribbon around the sealed package and hung it on the tree.

After it was all over he went upstairs and tried to read "Dombey & Son." But a mist came over his blue eyes and his vision carried him far beyond the printed page. He was not thinking of Nellie, but of his old mother, who had never forgotten to send him a Christmas present. Ah, if she were alive he would not be wondering to-night why Santa Claus had passed him by.

He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, closed "Dombey & Son" for the night, and went to bed, turning his thoughts to the row of tiny stockings that hung from the mantelpiece downstairs—for Phoebe had put to use all that she could find—and then let them drift on through space to an apartment near Central Park, where Kris Kringle had delivered during the day a little packet containing the brooch he had purchased for his wife out of the money he had preserved from the sale of his watch some weeks before.

He was glad he had sent Nellie a present.

Bright and early the next morning he was up to have a final look at the tree before Phoebe came down. A blizzard was blowing furiously; the windows were frosted; the house was cheerless. He built the fires in the grates and sat about with his shoulders hunched up till the merry crackle of the coals put warmth into his veins. The furnace! He thought of it in time, and hurried to the basement to replenish the fires. They were out. He had forgotten them the night before. Bridget found him there later on, trying to start the kindling in the two furnaces.

"I clean forgot 'em last night," he said, sheepishly.

"I don't wonder, sor," said Bridget, quite genially for a cold morning. "Do you be after going upstairs this minute, sor. I'll have them roaring in two shakes av a lamb's tail. Mebby there's good news for yez up there. Annie's at the front door this minute, taking a telegram from the messenger bye, sor. Merry Christmas to ye, sor."

"Merry Christmas, Bridget!" cried he, gaily. His heart had leaped at the news she brought. A telegram from Nellie! Hurrah! He rushed upstairs without brushing the coal dust from his hands.

The boy was waiting for his tip. Harvey gave him a quarter and wished him a merry Christmas.

"A miserable day to be out," said he, undecided whether to ask the half-frozen lad to stay and have a bite of breakfast or to let him go out into the weather.

"It's nothin' when you gets used to it," said the blue-capped philosopher, and took his departure.

"But it's the getting used to it," said Harvey to Annie as she handed him the message. He tore open the envelope. She saw the light die out of his eyes.

The message was from Ripton, the manager, and read:—

"Please send Phoebe in with the nurse to see the matinee to-day." The invitation was explicit enough. He was not wanted.

If he had a secret inclination to ignore the command altogether, it was frustrated by his own short-sightedness. He gulped, and then read the despatch aloud for the benefit of the maid. When it was too late he wished he had not done so.

Annie beamed. "Oh, sir, I've always wanted to see Miss Duluth act. I will take good care of Phoebe."

He considered it beneath his dignity to invite her into a conspiracy against the child, so he gloomily announced that he would go in with them on the one-o'clock train and stay to bring them out.

The Christmas tree was a great success. Phoebe was in raptures. He quite forgot his own disappointment in watching her joyous antics. As the distributor of the presents that hung on the gaily trimmed and dazzling cedar, he came at last to the little package from Butler. It contained a beautiful gold chain, at the end of which hung suspended a small diamond-studded slipper—blue enamel, fairly covered with rose diamonds.

Phoebe screamed with delight. Her father's face was a study.

"Why, they are diamonds!" he murmured. "Surely Butler wouldn't be giving presents like this." A card fluttered to the floor. He picked it up and read:—"A slipper for my little Cinderella. Keep it and it will bring good luck."

There was no name, but he knew who had sent it. With a cry of rage he snatched the dainty trinket from her hand and threw it on the floor, raising his foot to stamp it out of shape with his heel. His first vicious attempt missed the slipper altogether, and before he could repeat it the child was on the floor clutching it in her fingers, whimpering strangely. The servants looked on in astonishment.

He drew back, mumbling something under his breath. In a moment he regained control of himself.

"It—it isn't meant for you, darling," he said, hoarsely. "Santy left it here by mistake. We will send it back to him. It belongs to some other poor little girl."

"But I am Cinderella!" she cried. "Mr. Fairy-fax said so. He told Santy to bring it to me. Please, daddy—please!"

He removed it gently from her fingers and dropped it into his pocket. His face was very white.

"Santy isn't that kind of a man," he said, without rhyme or reason. "Now, don't cry, dearie. Here's another present from mamma. See!"

Later in the morning, after she had quite forgotten the slipper, he put it back in the box, wrapped it carefully, and addressed the package to L. Z. Fairfax, in New York City, without explanation or comment.



Before the morning was half over he was playing with Phoebe and her toys quite as childishly and gleefully as she, his heart in the fun she was having, his mind almost wholly cleared of the bitterness and rancour that so recently had filled it to overflowing.

The three of them floundered through the snowdrifts to the station, laughing and shouting with a merriment that proved infectious. The long-obscured sun came out and caught the disease, for he smiled broadly, and the wind gave over snarling and smirked with an amiability that must have surprised the shivering horses standing desolate in front of certain places wherein their owners partook of Christmas cheer that was warm.

Harvey took Phoebe and the nurse to the theatre in a cab. He went up to the box-office window and asked for the two tickets. The seller was most agreeable. He handed out the little envelope with the words:—

"A packed house to-day, Mr.—Mr.—er—ah, and—sold out for to-night. Here you are, with Miss Duluth's compliments—the best seats in the house. And here is a note for—er—yes, for the nurse."

Annie read the note. It was from Nellie, instructing her to bring Phoebe to her dressing-room after the performance, where they would have supper later on.

Harvey saw them pass in to the warm theatre and then slowly wandered out to the bleak, wind-swept street. There was nothing for him to do; nowhere that he could go to seek cheerful companions. For an hour or more he wandered up and down Broadway, his shoulders hunched up, his mittened hands to his ears, water running from his nose and eyes, his face the colour of the setting sun. Half-frozen, he at last ventured into a certain cafe, a place where he had lunched no fewer than half-a-dozen times, and where he thought his identity might have remained with the clerk at the cigar stand.

There were men at the tables, smoking and chatting hilariously. At one of them sat three men, two of whom were actors he had met. Summoning his courage, he approached them with a well-assumed air of nonchalance.

"Merry Christmas," was his greeting. The trio looked at him with no sign of recognition. "How are you. Mr. Brackley? How are you, Joe?"

The two actors shook hands with him without much enthusiasm, certainly without interest.

Light dawned on one of them. "Oh," said he, cheerlessly, "how are you? I couldn't place you at first." He did not offer to introduce him to the stranger, but proceeded to enlighten the other players. "It's—oh, you know—Nellie Duluth's husband."

The other fellow nodded and resumed his conversation with the third man. At the same time the speaker leaned forward to devote his attention to the tale in hand, utterly ignoring the little man, who stood with his hand on the back of the vacant chair.

Harvey waited for a few moments. "What will you have to drink?" he asked, shyly dropping into the chair. They stared at him and shook their heads.

"That seat's engaged," said the one called "Joe," gruffly.

Harvey got up instantly. "Oh," he said, in a hesitating manner. They went on with their conversation as if he were not there. After a moment he moved away, his ears burning, his soul filled with mortification and shame. In a sort of daze he approached the cigar stand and asked for a box of cigarettes.

"What kind?" demanded the clerk, laying down his newspaper.

Harvey smiled engagingly. "Oh, the kind I usually get!" he said, feeling sure that the fellow remembered him and the quality he smoked.

"What's that?" snapped the clerk, scowling.

The purchaser hastily mentioned a certain kind of cigarette, paid for it after the box had been tossed at him, and walked away. Fixed in his determination to stay in the place until he was well thawed out, he took a seat at a little table near the stairway and ordered a hot lemonade.

He was conscious of a certain amount of attention from the tables adjacent to the trio he had accosted. Several loud guffaws came to his ears as he sipped the boiling drink. Taking an unusually copious swallow, he coughed and spluttered as the liquid scalded his tongue and palate. The tears rushed to his eyes. From past experience he knew that his tongue would be sore for at least a week. He had such a tender tongue, Nellie said.

For half an hour he sat there dreaming and brooding. It was much better than tramping the streets. A clock on the opposite wall pointed to four o'clock. The matinee would be over at a quarter to five. Presently he looked again. It was five minutes past four. Really it wasn't so bad waiting after all; not half so bad as he had thought it would be.

Some one tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up with a start. The manager of the place stood at his elbow.

"This isn't a railway station, young feller," he said, harshly. "You'll have to move on. These tables are for customers."

"But I've bought——"

"Now, don't argue about it. You heard what I said. Move along."

The man's tone was peremptory. Poor Harvey looked around as if in search of a single benevolent face, and then, without a word of protest, arose and moved quickly toward the door. His eyes were fixed in a glassy stare on the dancing, elusive doorway. He wondered if he could reach it before he sank through the floor. Somehow he had the horrible feeling that just as he opened it to go out some one would kick him from behind. He could almost feel the impact of the boot and involuntarily accelerated his speed as he opened the door to pass into the biting air of the now darkening street.

"I hate this damned town," said he to himself over and over again as he flung himself against the gale that almost blew him off his feet. When he stopped to take his bearings, he was far above Longacre Square and still going in the wrong direction. He was befuddled. A policeman told him in hoarse, muffled tones to go back ten blocks or so if he wanted to find the theatre where Nellie Duluth was playing.

A clock in an apothecary's shop urged him to hurry. When he came to the theatre, the newsboys were waiting for the audience to appear. He was surrounded by a mob of boys and men shouting the extras.

"Is the show out?" he asked one of them.

"No, sir!" shouted the boy, eagerly. "Shall I call up your automobile, mister!"

"No, thank you," said Harvey through his chattering teeth. For a moment he felt distinctly proud and important. So shrewd a judge of humanity as a New York "newsy" had taken him to be a man of parts. For awhile he had been distressed by the fear, almost the conviction, that he was regarded by all New York as a "jay."

Belying his suddenly acquired air of importance, he hunched himself up against the side of the building, partly sheltered from the wind, and waited for the crowd to pour forth. With the appearance of the first of those home-goers he would repair to the stage door, and, once behind the scenes, was quite certain that he would receive an invitation from Nellie to join the gay little family supper party in her dressing-room.

When the time came, however, he approached the doorman with considerable trepidation. He had a presentiment that there would be "no admittance." Sure enough, the grizzled doorman, poking his head out, gruffly informed him that no one was allowed "back" without an order from the manager. Harvey explained who he was, taking it for granted that the man did not know him with his coat-collar turned up.

"I know you, all right," said the man, not unkindly. "I'd like to let you in, but—you see——" He coughed and looked about rather helplessly, avoiding the pleading look in the visitor's eyes.

"It's all right," Nellie's husband assured him, but an arm barred the way.

"I've got strict orders not to admit you," blurted out the doorman, hating himself.

"Not to admit me!" said Harvey, slowly.

"I'm sorry, sir. Orders is orders."

"But my little girl is there."

"Yes, sir, I understand. The orders are for you, sir, not for the kid." Struck by the look in the little man's eyes he hastened to say, "Maybe if you saw Mr. Ripton out front and sent a note in to Miss Duluth, she'd change her mind and——"

"Good Lord!" fell from Harvey's lips as he abruptly turned away to look for a spot where he could hide himself from every one.

Two hours later, from his position at the mouth of the alley, he saw a man come out of the stage door and blow a whistle thrice. He was almost perishing with cold; he was sure that his ears were frozen. A sharp snap at the top of each of them and a subsequent warmth urged him to press quantities of snow against them, obeying the old rule that like cures like. From the kitchens of a big restaurant came the odours of cooking foodstuffs. He was hungry on this Merry Christmas night, but he would not leave his post. He had promised to wait for Phoebe and take her out home with him in the train.

With the three blasts of the whistle he stirred his numb feet and edged nearer to the stage door. A big limousine came rumbling up the alley from behind, almost running him down. The fur-coated chauffeur called him unspeakable names as he passed him with the emergency brakes released.

Before he could reach the entrance, the door flew open and a small figure in fur coat and a well known white hat was bundled into the machine by a burly stage hand. A moment later Annie clambered in, the door was slammed and the machine started ahead.

He shouted as he ran, but his cry was not heard. As the car careened down the narrow lane, throwing snow in all directions, he dropped into a dejected, beaten walk. Slowly he made his way in the trail of the big car—it was too dark for him to detect the colour, but he felt it was green—and came at last to the mouth of the alley, desolate, bewildered, hurt beyond all understanding.

For an instant he steadied himself against the icy wall of a building, trying to make up his mind what to do next. Suddenly it occurred to him that if he ran hard and fast he could catch the train—the seven-thirty—and secure a bit of triumph in spite of circumstances.

He went racing up the street toward Sixth Avenue, dodging head-lowered pedestrians with the skill of an Indian, and managed to reach Forty-second Street without mishap or delay. Above the library he was stopped by a policeman, into whose arms he went full tilt, almost bowling him over. The impact dazed him. He saw many stars on the officer's breast. As he looked they dwindled into one bright and shining planet and a savage voice was bellowing:—

"Hold still or I'll bat you over the head!"

"I'm—I'm trying to make the seven-thirty," he panted, wincing under the grip on his arm.

"We'll see about that," growled the policeman.

"For Heaven's sake, Mr. Policeman, I haven't done anything. Honest, I'm in a hurry. My little girl's on that train. We live in Tarrytown. She'll cry her eyes out if I——"

"What was you running for?"

"For it," said Harvey, at the end of a deep breath.

"It's only seven-five now," said the officer, suspiciously.

"Well, it's the seven-ten I want, then," said Harvey, hastily.

"I guess I'll hold you here and see if anybody comes chasin' up after you. Not a word, now. Close your trap."

As no one came up to accuse the prisoner of murder, theft, or intoxication, the intelligent policeman released him at the expiration of fifteen minutes. A crowd had collected despite the cold. Harvey was always to remember that crowd of curious people; he never ceased wondering where they came from and why they were content to stand there shivering in the zero weather when there were stoves and steam radiators everywhere to be found. To add to his humiliation at least a dozen men and boys, not satisfied with the free show as far as it had gone, pursued him to the very gates in the concourse.

"Darned loafers!" said Harvey, hotly, but under his breath, as he showed his ticket and his teeth at the same time. Then he rushed for the last coach and swung on as it moved out.

Now, if I were inclined to be facetious or untruthful I might easily add to his troubles by saying that he got the wrong train, or something of the sort, but it is not my purpose to be harder on him than I have to be.

It was the right train, and, better still, Annie and Phoebe were in the very last seat of the very last coach. With a vast sigh he dropped into a vacant seat ahead of them and began fanning himself with his hat, to the utter amazement of onlookers, who had been disturbed by his turbulent entrance.

The newspaper Annie was reading fell from her hands.

"My goodness, sir! Where did you come from?" she managed to inquire.

"I've been—dining—at—Sherry's," he wheezed. "Annie, will you look and see if my ears are frozen?"

"They are, sir. Good gracious!"

He realised that he had been indiscreet.

"I—I sat in a draught," he hastened to explain. "Did you have a nice time, Phoebe?"

The child was sleepy. "No," she said, almost sullenly. His heart gave a bound. "Mamma wouldn't let me eat anything. She said I'd get fat."

"You had quite enough to eat, Phoebe," said Annie.

"I didn't," said Phoebe.

"Never mind," said her father, "I'll take you to Sherry's some day."

"When, daddy?" she cried, wide awake at once. "I like to go to places with you."

He faltered. "Some day after mamma has gone off on the road. We'll be terribly gay, while she's away, see if we ain't."

Annie picked up the paper and handed it to him.

"Miss Duluth ain't going on the road, sir," she said. "It's in the paper."

He read the amazing news. Annie, suddenly voluble, gave it to him by word of mouth while he read. It was all there, she said, to prove what she was telling him. "Just as if I couldn't read!" said Harvey, as he began the article all over again after perusing the first few lines in a perfectly blank state of mind.

"Yes, sir, the doctor says she can't stand it on the road. She's got nervous prosperity and she's got to have a long rest. That Miss Brown is going to take her place in the play after this week and Miss Duluth is going away out West to live for awhile to get strong again. She——What is the name of the town, Phoebe?"

"Reno," said Phoebe, promptly.

"But the name of the town isn't in the paper, sir," Annie informed him. "It's a place where people with complications go to get rid of them, Miss Nellie says. The show won't be any good without her, sir. I wouldn't give two cents to see it."

He sagged down in the seat, a cold perspiration starting out all over his body.

"When does she go—out there!" he asked, as in a dream.

"First of next week. She goes to Chicago with the company and then right on out to—to—er—to——"

"Reno," said he, lifelessly.

"Yes, sir."

He did not know how long afterward it was that he heard Phoebe saying to him, her tired voice barely audible above the clacking of the wheels:—

"I want a drink of water, daddy."

His voice seemed to come back to him from some far-away place. He blinked his eyes several times and said, very wanly:—

"You mustn't drink water, dearie. It will make you fat."



CHAPTER VI

THE REVOLVER

He waited until the middle of the week for some sign from her; none coming, he decided to go once more to her apartment before it was too late. The many letters he wrote to her during the first days after learning of her change of plans were never sent. He destroyed them. A sense of shame, a certain element of pride, held them back. Still, he argued with no little degree of justice, there were many things to be decided before she took the long journey—and the short step she was so plainly contemplating.

It was no more than right that he should make one last and determined effort to save her from the fate she was so blindly courting. It was due her. She was his wife. He had promised to cherish and protect her. If she would not listen to the appeal, at least he would have done his bounden duty.

There was an ever present, ugly fear, too, that she meant, by some hook or crook, to rob him of Phoebe.

"And she's as much mine as hers," he declared to himself a thousand times or more.

Behind everything, yet in plain view, lay his own estimate of himself—the naked truth—he was "no good!" He had come to the point of believing it of himself. He was not a success; he was quite the other thing. But, granting that, he was young and entitled to another chance. He could work into a partnership with Mr. Davis if given the time.

Letting the midweek matinee slip by, he made the plunge on a Thursday. She was to leave New York on Sunday morning; that much he knew from the daily newspapers, which teemed with Nellie's breakdown and its lamentable consequences. It would be at least a year, the papers said, before she could resume her career on the stage. He searched the columns daily for his own name, always expecting to see himself in type little less conspicuous than that accorded to her, and stigmatised as a brute, an inebriate, a loafer. It was all the same to him—brute, soak, or loafer. But even under these extraordinary conditions he was as completely blanketed by obscurity as if he never had been in existence.

Sometimes he wondered whether she could get a divorce without according him a name. He had read of fellow creatures meeting death "at the hand of a person (or of persons) unknown." Could a divorce complaint be worded in such non-committal terms? Then there was that time-honoured shroud of private identity, the multitudinous John Doe. Could she have the heart to bring proceedings against him as John Doe? He wondered.

If he were to shoot himself, so that she might have her freedom without going to all the trouble of a divorce or the annoyance of a term of residence in Reno, would she put his name on a tombstone? He wondered.

A strange, a most unusual thing happened to him just before he left the house to go to the depot. He was never quite able to account for the impulse which sent him upstairs rather obliquely to search through a trunk for a revolver, purchased a couple of years before, following the report that housebreakers were abroad in Tarrytown, and which he had promptly locked away in his trunk for fear that Phoebe might get hold of it.

He rummaged about in the trunk, finally unearthing the weapon. He slipped it into his overcoat pocket with a furtive glance over his shoulder. He chuckled as he went down the stairs. It was a funny thing for him to do, locking the revolver in the trunk that way. What burglar so obliging as to tarry while he went through all the preliminaries incident to destruction under the circumstances? Yes, it was stupid of him.

He did not consider the prospect of being arrested for carrying concealed weapons until he was halfway to the city, and then he broke into a mild perspiration. From that moment he eyed every man with suspicion. He had heard of "plain clothes men." They were the very worst kind. "They take you unawares so," said he to himself, with which he moved closer to the wall of the car, the more effectually to conceal the weapon. It wouldn't do to be caught going about with a revolver in one's pocket. That would be the very worst thing that could happen. It would mean "the Island" or some other such place, for he could not have paid a fine.

It occurred to him, therefore, that it would be wiser to get down at One Hundred and Tenth street and walk over to Nellie's. The policemen were not so thick nor so bothersome up there, he figured, and it was a rather expensive article he was carrying; one never got them back from the police, even if the fine were paid.

Footsore, weary, and chilled to the bone, he at length came to the apartment building wherein dwelt Nellie Duluth. In these last few weeks he had developed a habit of thinking of her as Nellie Duluth, a person quite separate and detached from himself. He had come to regard himself as so far removed from Nellie Duluth that it was quite impossible for him to think of her as Mrs.—Mrs.—he had to rack his brain for the name, the connection was so remote.

He had walked miles—many devious and lengthening miles—before finally coming to the end of his journey. Once he came near asking a policeman to direct him to Eighty-ninth Street, but the sudden recollection of the thing he carried stopped him in time. That and the discovery of a sign on a post which frostily informed him that he was then in the very street he sought.

It should go without the saying that he hesitated a long time before entering the building. Perhaps it would be better after all to write to her. Somewhat sensibly he argued that a letter would reach her, while it was more than likely he would fall short of a similar achievement. She couldn't deny Uncle Sam, but she could slam the door in her husband's face. Yes, he concluded, a letter was the thing. Having come to this half-hearted decision, he proceeded to argue himself out of it. Suppose that she received the letter, did it follow that she would reply to it? He might enclose a stamp and all that sort of thing, but he knew Nellie; she wouldn't answer a letter—at least, not that kind of letter. She would laugh at it, and perhaps show it to her friends, who also would be vastly amused. He remembered some of them as he saw them in the cafe that day; they were given to uproarious laughter. No, he concluded, a letter was not the thing. He must see her. He must have it out with her, face to face.

So he went up in the elevator to the eleventh floor, which was the top one, got out and walked down to the sixth, where she lived. Her name was on the door plate. He read it three or four times before resolutely pressing the electric button. Then he looked over his shoulder quickly, impelled by the queer feeling that some one was behind him, towering like a dark, threatening shadow. A rough hand seemed ready to close upon his shoulder to drag him back and down. But no one was there. He was alone in the little hall. And yet something was there. He could feel it, though he could not see it; something sinister that caused him to shiver. His tense fingers relaxed their grip on the revolver. Strangely the vague thing that disturbed him departed in a flash and he felt himself alone once more. It was very odd, thought he.

Rachel came to the door. She started back in surprise, aye, alarm, when she saw the little man in the big ulster. A look of consternation sprang into her black eyes.

He opened his lips to put the natural question, but paused with the words unuttered. The sound of voices in revelry came to his ears from the interior of the apartment, remote but very insistent. Men's voices and women's voices raised in merriment. His gaze swept the exposed portion of the hall. Packing boxes stood against the wall, piled high. The odour of camphor came out and smote his sense of smell.

Rachel was speaking. Her voice was peculiarly hushed and the words came quickly, jerkily from her lips.

"Miss Duluth is engaged, sir. I'm sorry she will not be able to see you."

He stared uncertainly at her and beyond her.

"So she's packing her things," he murmured, more to himself than to the servant. Rachel was silent. He saw the door closing in his face. A curious sense of power, of authority, came over him. "Hold on," he said sharply, putting his foot against the door. "You go and tell her I want to see her. It's important—very important!"

"She has given orders, sir, not to let you——"

"Well, I'm giving a few orders myself, and I won't stand for any back talk, do you hear? Who is the master of this place, tell me that?" He thumped his breast with his knuckles. "Step lively, now. Tell her I'm here."

He pushed his way past her and walked into what he called the "parlour," but what was to Nellie the "living-room." Here he found numerous boxes, crates, and parcels, all prepared for shipment or storage. Quite coolly he examined the tag on a large crate. The word "Reno" smote him. As he cringed he smiled a sickly smile without being conscious of the act. "Wait a minute," he called to Rachel, who was edging in an affrighted manner toward the lower end of the hall and the dining-room. "What is she doing?"

Rachel's face brightened. He was going to be amenable to reason.

"It's a farewell luncheon, sir. She simply can't be disturbed. I'll tell her you were here."

"You don't need to tell her anything," said he, briskly. The sight of those crates and boxes had made another man of him. "I'll announce myself. She won't——"

"You'd better not!" cried Rachel, distractedly. "There are some men here. They will throw you out of the apartment. They're big enough, Mr.—Mr.——"

He grinned. His fingers took a new grip on the revolver.

"Napoleon wasn't as big as I am," he said, much to Rachel's distress. It sounded very mad to her. "Size isn't everything."

"For Heaven's sake, sir, please don't——"

"They seem to be having a gay old time," said he, as a particularly wild burst of laughter came from the dining-room. He hesitated. "Who is out there?"

Rachel was cunning. "I don't know the names, sir. They're—they're strangers to me."

At that instant the voice of Fairfax came to his ears, loudly proclaiming a health to the invalid who was going to Reno. Harvey stood there in the hall, listening to the toast. He heard it to the end, and the applause that followed. If he were to accept the diagnosis of the speaker, Nellie was repairing to Reno to be cured of an affliction that had its inception seven years before, a common malady, but not fatal if taken in time. The germ, or, more properly speaking, the parasite, unlike most bacteria, possessed but two legs, and so on and so forth.

The laughter was just dying away when Harvey—who recognised himself as the pestiferous germ alluded to—strode into the room, followed by the white-faced Rachel.

"Who was it, Rachel?" called out Nellie, from behind the enormous centrepiece of roses which obstructed her view of the unwelcome visitor.

The little man in the ulster piped up, shrilly:—

"She don't know my name, but I guess you do, if you'll think real hard."

There were ten at the table, flushed with wine and the exertion of hilarity. Twenty eyes were focussed on the queer, insignificant little man in the doorway. If they had not been capable of focussing them on anything a moment before, they acquired the power to do so now.

Nellie, staring blankly, arose. She wet her lips twice before speaking.

"Who let you in here?" she cried, shrilly.

One of the men pushed back his chair and came to his feet a bit unsteadily.

"What the deuce is it, Nellie?" he hiccoughed.

Nellie had her wits about her. She was very pale, but she was calm. Instinctively she felt that trouble—even tragedy—was confronting her; the thing she had feared all along without admitting it even to herself.

"Sit down, Dick," she commanded. "Don't get excited, any of you. It's all right. My husband, that's all."

The man at her right was Fairfax. He was gaping at Harvey with horror in his face. He, too, had been expecting something like this. Involuntarily he shifted his body so that the woman on the other side, a huge creature, was partially between him and the little man in the door.

"Get him out of here!" he exclaimed. "He's just damned fool enough to do something desperate if we——"

"You shut up!" barked Harvey, in a sudden access of fury. "Not a word out of you, you big bully."

"Get him out!" gasped Fairfax, holding his arm over his face. "What did I tell you? He's crazy! Grab him, Smith! Hurry up!"

"Grab him yourself!" retorted Smith, in some haste. "He's not gunning for me."

What there was to be afraid of in the appearance of the little ulstered man who stood there with his hands in his pockets I cannot for the life of me tell, but there was no doubt as to the consternation he produced in the midst of this erstwhile jovial crowd. An abrupt demand of courtesy urged him to raise his hand to doff his hat in the presence of ladies. Twenty terrified eyes watched the movement as if ten lives hung on the result thereof. Half of the guests were standing, the other half too petrified to move. A husband is a thing to strike terror to the heart, believe me, no matter how trivial he may be, especially an unexpected husband.

"Go away, Harvey!" cried Nellie, placing Fairfax between herself and the intruder.

"Don't do that!" growled the big man, sharply. "Do you suppose I want him shooting holes through me in order to get at you?"

"Is he going to shoot?" wailed one of the women, dropping the wineglass she had been holding poised near her lips all this time. The tinkle of broken glass and the douche of champagne passed unnoticed. "For God's sake, let me get out of here!"

"Keep your seats, ladies and gents," said Harvey, hastily, beginning to show signs of confusion. "I just dropped in to see Nellie for a few minutes. Don't let me disturb you. She can step into the parlour, I guess. They'll excuse you, Nellie."

"I'll do nothing of the sort," snapped Nellie, noting the change in him. "Go away or I'll have a policeman called."

He grinned. "Well, if you do, he'll catch me with the goods," he said, mysteriously.

"The goods?" repeated Nellie.

"Do you want to see it?" he asked, fixing her with his eyes. As he started to withdraw his hand from his overcoat pocket, a general cry of alarm went up and there was a sudden shifting of positions.

"Don't do that!" roared two or three of the men in a breath.

"Keep that thing in your pocket!" commanded Fairfax, huskily, without removing his gaze from the arm that controlled the hidden hand.

Harvey gloated. He waved the hand that held his hat. "Don't be alarmed, ladies," he said. "You are quite safe. I can hit a silver dollar at twenty paces, so there's no chance of anything going wild."

"For God's sake!" gasped Fairfax. Suddenly he disappeared beneath the edge of the table. His knees struck the floor with a resounding thump.

"Get away from me!" shrieked the corpulent lady, kicking at him as she fled the danger spot.

Harvey stooped and peered under the table at his enemy, a broad grin on his face. Fairfax took it for a grin of malevolence.

"Peek-a-boo!" called Harvey.

"Don't shoot! For the love of Heaven, don't shoot!" yelled Fairfax. Then to the men who were edging away in quest of safety behind the sideboard, china closet, and serving table:—"Why don't you grab him, you idiots?"

Harvey suddenly realised the danger of his position. He straightened up and jerked the revolver from his pocket, brandishing it in full view of them all.

"Keep back!" he shouted—a most unnecessary command.

Those who could not crowd behind the sideboard made a rush for the butler's pantry. Feminine shrieks and masculine howls filled the air. Chairs were overturned in the wild rush for safety. No less than three well-dressed women were crawling on their hands and knees toward the only means of exit from the room.

"Telephone for the police!" yelled Fairfax, backing away on all-fours, suggesting a crawfish.

"Stay where you are!" cried Harvey, now thoroughly alarmed by the turn of affairs.

They stopped as if petrified. The three men who were wedged in the pantry door gave over struggling for the right of precedence and turned to face the peril.

Once more he brandished the weapon, and once more there were shrieks and groans, this time in a higher key.

Nellie alone stood her ground. She was desperate. Death was staring her in the face, and she was staring back as if fascinated.

"Harvey! Harvey!" she cried, through bloodless lips. "Don't do it! Think of Phoebe! Think of your child!"

Rachel was stealing down the hall. The little Napoleon suddenly realised her purpose and thwarted it.

"Come back here!" he shouted. The trembling maid could not obey for a very excellent reason. She dropped to the floor as if shot, and, failing in the effort to crawl under a low hall-seat, remained there, prostrate and motionless.

He then addressed himself to Nellie, first cocking the pistol in a most cold-blooded manner. Paying no heed to the commands and exhortations of the men, or the whines of the women, he announced:—

"That's just what I've come here to ask you to do, Nellie; think of Phoebe. Will you promise me to——"

"I'll promise nothing!" cried Nellie, exasperated. She was beginning to feel ridiculous, which was much worse than feeling terrified. "You can't bluff me, Harvey, not for a minute."

"I'm not trying to bluff you," he protested. "I'm simply asking you to think. You can think, can't you? If you can't think here with all this noise going on, come into the parlour. We can talk it all over quietly and—why, great Scott, I don't want to kill anybody!" Noting an abrupt change in the attitude of the men, who found some encouragement in his manner, he added hastily, "Unless I have to, of course. Here, you! Don't get up!" The command was addressed to Fairfax. "I'd kind of like to take a shot at you, just for fun."

"Harvey," said his wife, quite calmly, "if you don't put that thing in your pocket and go away I will have you locked up as sure as I'm standing here."

"I ask you once more to come into the parlour and talk it over with me," said he, wavering.

"And I refuse," she cried, furiously.

"Go and have it out with him, Nellie," groaned Fairfax, lifting his head above the edge of the table, only to lower it instantly as Harvey's hand wabbled unsteadily in a sort of attempt to draw a bead on him.

"Well, why don't you shoot?" demanded Nellie, curtly.

"No! No!" roared Fairfax.

"No! No!" shrieked the women.

"For two cents I would," stammered Harvey, quite carried away by the renewed turmoil.

"You would do anything for two cents," said Nellie, sarcastically.

"I'd shoot myself for two cents," he wailed, dismally. "I'm no use, anyway. I'd be better off dead."

"For God's sake let him do it, Nellie," hissed Fairfax. "That's the thing; the very thing."

Poor Harvey suddenly came to a full realisation of the position he was in. He had not counted on all this. Now he was in for it, and there was no way out of it. A vast sense of shame and humiliation mastered him. Everything before him turned gray and bleak, and then a hideous red.

He had not meant to do a single thing he had already done. Events had shaped themselves for him. He was surprised, dumfounded, overwhelmed. The only thought that now ran through his addled brain was that he simply had to do something. He couldn't stand there forever, like a fool, waving a pistol. In a minute or two they would all be laughing at him. It was ghastly. The wave of self-pity, of self-commiseration submerged him completely. Why, oh why, had he got himself into this dreadful pickle? He had merely come to talk it over with Nellie, that and nothing more. And now, see what he was in for!

"By jingo," he gasped, in the depth of despair, "I'll do it! I'll make you sorry, Nellie; you'll be sorry when you see me lying here all shot to pieces. I've been a good husband to you. I don't deserve to die like this, but——" His watery blue eyes took in the horrified expressions on the faces of his hearers. An innate sense of delicacy arose within him. "I'll do it in the hall."

"Be careful of the rug," cried Nellie, gayly, not for an instant believing that he would carry out the threat.

"Shall I do it here?" he asked, feebly.

"No!" shrieked the women, putting their fingers in their ears.

"By all means!" cried Fairfax, with a loud laugh of positive relief.

To his own as well as to their amazement, Harvey turned the muzzle of the pistol toward his face. It wabbled aimlessly. Even at such short range he had the feeling that he would miss altogether and looked over his shoulder to see if there was a picture or anything else on the wall that might be damaged by the stray bullet. Then he inserted the muzzle in his mouth.

Stupefaction held his audience. Not a hand was lifted, not a breath was drawn. For half a second his finger clung to the trigger without pressing it. Then he lowered the weapon.

"I guess I better go out in the hall, where the elevator is," he said. "Don't follow me. Stay where you are. You needn't worry."

"I'll bet you ten dollars you don't do it," said Fairfax, loudly, as he came to his feet.

"I don't want your dirty money, blast you," exclaimed Harvey, without thinking. "Good-by, Nellie. Be good to Phoebe. Tell 'em out in Blakeville that I—oh, tell 'em anything you like. I don't give a rap!"

He turned and went shambling down the hall, his back very stiff, his ears very red.

It was necessary to step over Rachel's prostrate form. He got one foot across, when she, crazed with fear, emitted a piercing shriek and arose so abruptly that he was caught unawares. What with the start the shriek gave him and the uprising of a supposedly inanimate mass, his personal equilibrium was put to the severest test. Indeed, he quite lost it, going first into the air with all the sprawl of a bronco buster, and then landing solidly on his left ear where there wasn't a shred of rug to ease the impact. In a twinkling, however, he was on his feet, apologising to Rachel. But she was crawling away as fast as her hands and knees would carry her. From the dining-room came violent shouts, the hated word "police" dominating the clamour.

He slid through the door and closed it after him. A moment later he was plunging down the steps, disdaining the elevator, which, however fast it may have been, could not have been swift enough for him in his present mood. The police! They would be clanging up to the building in a jiffy, and then what? To the station house!

Half-way down he paused to reflect. Voices above came howling down the shaft, urging the elevator man to stop him, to hold him, to do all manner of things to him. He felt himself trapped.

So he sat down on an upper step, leaned back against the marble wall, closed his eyes tightly, and jammed the muzzle of the revolver against the pit of his stomach.

"I hate to do it," he groaned, and then pulled the trigger.

The hammer fell with a sharp click. He opened his eyes. If it didn't hurt any more than that he could do it with them open. Why not? In a frenzy to have it over with he pulled again and was gratified to find that the second bullet was not a whit more painful than the first. Then he thought of the ugly spectacle he would present if he confined the mutilation to the abdominal region. People would shudder and say, "how horrible he looks!" So he considerately aimed the third one at his right eye.

Even as he pulled the trigger, and the hammer fell with the usual click, his vision centred on the black little hole in the end of the barrel. Breathlessly he waited for the bullet to emerge. Then, all of a sudden, he recalled that there had been no explosion. The fact had escaped him during the throes of a far from disagreeable death. He put his hand to his stomach. In a dumb sort of wonder he first examined his fingers, and, finding no gore, proceeded to a rather careful inspection of the weapon.

Then he leaned back and dizzily tried to remember when he had taken the cartridges out of the thing.

"Thank the Lord," he said, quite devoutly. "I thought I was a goner, sure. Now, when did I take 'em out?"

The elevator shot past him, going upward. He paid no attention to it.

It all came back to him in a flash. He remembered that he had never loaded it at all. A loaded pistol is a very dangerous thing to have about the house. The little box of cartridges that came with the weapon was safely locked away at the bottom of the trunk, wrapped in a thick suit of underwear for protection against concussion.

Even as he congratulated himself on his remarkable foresight the elevator, filled with excited men, rushed past him on the way down. He heard them saying that a dangerous lunatic was at large and that he ought to be——But he couldn't hear the rest of it, the car being so far below him.

"By jingo!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet in consternation. "They'll get me now. What a blamed fool I was!"

Scared out of his wits, he dashed up the steps, three at a jump, and, before he knew it, ran plump into the midst of the women who were huddled at Nellie's landing, waiting for the shots and the death yells from below. They scattered like sheep, too frightened to scream, and he plunged through the open door into the apartment.

"Where are you, Nellie?" he bawled. "Hide me! Don't let 'em get me. Nellie! Oh, Nellie!"

The shout would have raised the dead. Nellie was at the telephone. She dropped the receiver and came toward him.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself!" she squealed, clutching his arm. "What an awful spectacle you've made of yourself—and me! You blithering little idiot. I——"

"Where can I hide?" he whispered, hopping up and down in his eagerness. "Hurry up! Under a bed or—anywhere. Good gracious, Nellie, they'll get me sure!"

She slammed the door.

"I ought to let them take you and lock you up," she said, facing him. The abject terror in his eyes went straight to her heart. "Oh, you poor thing!" she cried, in swift compassion. "You—you wouldn't hurt a fly. You couldn't. Come along! Quick! I'll do this much for you, just this once. Never again! You can get down the back steps into the alley if you hurry. Then beat it for home. And never let me see your face again."

Three minutes later he was scuttling down the alley as fast as his eager legs could carry him.

Nellie was holding the front door against the thunderous assault of a half dozen men, giving him time to escape. All the while she was thinking of the depositions she could take from the witnesses to his deliberate attempt to kill her. He had made it very easy for her.



CHAPTER VII

THE LAWYER

He was dismally confident that he would be arrested and thrown into jail on Friday. It was always an unlucky day for him. The fact that Nellie had aided and abetted in his undignified flight down the slippery back steps did not in the least minimise the peril that still hung like a cloud over his wretched head. Of course, he understood: she was sorry for him. It was the impulse of the moment. When she had had time to think it all over and to listen to the advice of Fairfax and the others, she would certainly swear out a warrant.

As a measure of precaution he had slyly tossed the revolver from a car window somewhere north of Spuyten Duyvil, and, later on at home, stealthily disposed of the box of cartridges.

All evening long he sat huddled up by the fireplace, listening with all ears for the ominous sound of constabulary thumpings at the front door. The fierce wind shrieked around the corners of the house, rattling the shutters and banging the kitchen gate, but he heard nothing, for his own heart made such a din in response to the successive bursts of noise that all else seemed still by comparison.

His efforts to amuse the perplexed Phoebe were pitiful. The child took him to task for countless lapses of memory in his recital of oft-told and familiar fairy tales.

But no one came that night. And Friday, too, dragged itself out of existence without a sign from Nellie or the dreaded officers of the law. You may be sure he did not poke his nose outside the door all that day. Somehow he was beginning to relish the thought that she would be gone on Sunday, gone forever, perhaps. He loved her, of course, but distance at this particular time was not likely to affect the enchantment. In fact, he was quite sure he would worship her a great deal more comfortably if she were beyond the border of the State.

The thought of punishment quite overshadowed a previous dread as to how he was going to provide for Phoebe and himself up to the time of assuming the job in Davis' drug store. He had long since come to the conclusion that if Nellie persisted in carrying out her plan to divorce him he could not conscientiously accept help from her, nor could he expect to retain custody of the child unless by his own efforts he made suitable provision for her. His one great hope in the face of this particular difficulty had rested on the outcome of the visit to her apartment, the miserable result of which we know. Not only had he upset all of his fondest calculations, but he had heaped unthinkable ruin in the place he had set aside for them.

There was nothing consoling in the situation, no matter how he looked at it. More than once he regretted the emptiness of that confounded cylinder. If there had been a single bullet in the thing his troubles would now be over. Pleasing retrospect! But not for all the money in the world would he again subject himself to a similar risk.

It made him shudder to even think of it. It was hard enough for him to realise that he had had the monumental courage to try it on that never to be forgotten occasion. As a matter of fact, he was rather proud of it, which wouldn't have been at all possible if he had succeeded in the cowardly attempt.

Suppose, thought he with a qualm—suppose there had been a bullet! It was now Saturday. His funeral would be held on Saturday. By Saturday night he would be in a grave—a lonesome, desolate grave. Nellie would have seen to that, so that she could get away on Sunday. Ugh! It was most unpleasant!

The day advanced. His spirits were rising. If nothing happened between then and midnight he was reasonably secure from arrest.

But in the middle of the day the blow fell. Not the expected blow, but one that stunned him and left him more miserable than anything else in the world could have done.

There came a polite knock at the door. Annie admitted a pleasant-faced, rather ceremonious young man, who said he had business of the utmost importance to transact with Mr.—Mr.—He glanced at a paper which he drew from his pocket, and supplying the name asked if the gentleman was in.

Harvey was tiptoeing toward the dining-room, with Phoebe at his heels, when the stranger entered the library.

"Pardon me," called the young man, with what seemed to Harvey unnecessary haste and emphasis. "Just a moment, please!"

Harvey stopped, chilled to the marrow.

"It was all a joke," he said, quickly. "Just a little joke of mine. Ha! Ha!" It was a sepulchral laugh.

"I am John Buckley, from the offices of Barnes & Canby, representing Miss Duluth, your wife, I believe? It isn't a pleasant duty I have to perform Mr.—Mr—er—but, of course, you understand we are acting in the interests of our client and if we can get together on this——"

"Can't you come some other day?" stammered Harvey, holding Phoebe's hand very tightly in his. "I'm—I'm not well to-day. We—we are waiting now for the health officer to—to see whether it's smallpox or just a rash of——"

The pleasant young gentleman laughed.

"All the more necessary why we should settle the question at once. If it is smallpox the child would be quarantined with you—that would be unfortunate. You don't appear to have a rash, however."

"It hasn't got up to my face yet," explained Harvey, feebly. "You ought to see my body. It's——"

"I've had it," announced the young man, glibly; "so I'm immune." He winked.

"What do you want?" demanded Harvey, bracing himself for the worst. "Out with it. Let's see your star."

"Oh, I'm not a cop. I'm a lawyer."

The other swallowed noisily.

"A lawyer?"

"We represent Miss Duluth. I'll get down to tacks right away, if you'll permit me to sit down." He took a chair.

"Tacks?" queried Harvey, a retrospective grin appearing on his lips. "Gee! I wish I'd thought to put a couple——But, excuse me, I can't talk without my lawyer being present."

The visitor stared. "You—do you mean to say you have retained counsel?"

"The best in New York," lied Harvey.

Buckley gave a sigh of relief. He knew a lie when he heard one.

"I'd suggest that you send the little girl out of the room. We can talk better if we are alone."

After Phoebe's reluctant departure, the visitor bluntly asked Harvey which he preferred, State's prison or an amicable adjustment without dishonour.

"Neither," said Harvey, moistening his lips.

Thereupon Mr. Buckley calmly announced that his client, Miss Duluth, was willing to forego the pleasure of putting him behind the bars on condition that he surrendered at once the person of their child—their joint child, he put it, so that Harvey might not be unnecessarily confused—to be reared, educated, and sustained by her, without let or hindrance, from that time forward, so on and so forth; a bewildering rigmarole that meant nothing to the stupefied father, who only knew that they wanted to take his child away from him.

"Moreover," said Mr. Buckley, "our client has succeeded in cancelling the lease on this cottage and has authorised the owner to take possession on the first of the month—next Wednesday, that is. Monday morning, bright and early, the packers and movers will be here to take all of her effects away. Tuesday night, we hope, the house will be quite empty and ready to be boarded up. Of course, Mr.—Mr.—er—, you will see to it that whatever trifling effects you may have about the place are removed by that time. After that, naturally, little Miss Phoebe will be homeless unless provision is made for her by—er—by the court. We hope to convince you that it will be better for her if the question is not referred to a court of justice. Your own good sense will point the alternative. Do I make myself quite clear to you?"

"No," said Harvey, helplessly.

"Well, I'll be a little more explicit," said the lawyer, grimly. "A warrant will be issued for your arrest before two o'clock to-day if you do not grasp my meaning before that hour. It is twelve-ten now. Do you think you can catch the idea in an hour and fifty minutes?"

Harvey was thoughtful. "What is the smallest sentence they can give me if I—if I stand trial?"

"That depends," said Mr. Buckley, slightly taken aback, but without submitting an explanation. "You don't want to bring disgrace on the child by being branded as a jailbird, do you?"

"Nellie won't have the heart to put me in jail," groaned the unhappy little man. "She—she just can't do it. She knows I'd die for her. She——"

"But she isn't the State of New York," explained her counsel, briskly. "The State hasn't anything in the shape of a heart. Now, I'm here to settle the matter without a contest, if that's possible. If you want to fight, all right. You know just what you'll get. Besides, isn't it perfectly clear to you that Miss Duluth doesn't want to put you in jail? That's her idea, pure and simple. I don't mind confessing that our firm insisted for a long time on giving you up to the authorities, but she wouldn't have it that way. She wants her little girl, that's all. Isn't that perfectly fair?"

"She's—she's going to give up the house?" murmured Harvey, passing his hand over his eyes.

"Certainly."

"It's a mighty inconvenient time for us to—to look for another place——"

"That's just what I've been saying to you," urged Buckley. "The Weather Bureau says we'll have zero weather for a month or two. I shudder to think of that poor child out in——"

"Oh, Lord!" came almost in a wail from the lips of Phoebe's father. He covered his face with his hands. Mr. Buckley, unseen, smiled triumphantly.

At four o'clock Phoebe, with all her childish penates, was driven to the station by Mr. Buckley, who, it would appear, had come prepared for the emergency. Before leaving he gave the two servants a month's wages and a two weeks' notice dating from the 18th of December and left with Harvey sufficient money to pay up all the outstanding bills of the last month—with a little left over.

We draw a curtain on the parting that took place in the little library just before the cab drove away.

Phoebe was going to Reno.

Long, long after the departure her father lifted his half-closed blue eyes from the coals in the grate and discovered that the room was ice-cold.

* * * * *

He understood the habits of astute theatrical managers so well by this time that he did not have to be told that the company would journey to Chicago by one of the slow trains. The comfort and convenience of the player is seldom considered by the manager, who, as a rule, when there is time to spare, transports his production by the least expensive way. Harvey knew that Nellie and the "Up in the Air" company would pass through Tarrytown on the pokiest day train leaving New York over the Central. There was, of course, the possibility that the affluent Nellie might take the eighteen-hour train, but it was somewhat remote.

Sunday morning found him at the Tarrytown station, awaiting the arrival or the passing of the train bearing the loved ones who were casting him off. He was there early, bundled in his ulster, an old Blakeville cap pulled down over his ears, a limp cigarette between his lips. A few of the station employes knew him and passed the time of day.