one thing he needed in the world above all others it was another
drink. True, he had had more than enough already. But that was Coxe's
fault. He had invited him and made him drink. There couldn't be any harm
in taking another. He might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. By
the time he emerged from the saloon his speech was thick and his step
uncertain. A few minutes later he was painfully climbing up the rickety
stairs of a cheap-looking flat house. As he reached the top floor a
cheerful voice called out:

"Is that you, Howard, dear?"

CHAPTER II.

A young woman hurried out of one of the apartments to greet Howard. She
was a vivacious brunette of medium height, intelligent looking, with
good features and fine teeth. It was not a doll face, but the face of a
woman who had experienced early the hard knocks of the world, yet in
whom adversity had not succeeded in wholly subduing a naturally buoyant,
amiable disposition. There was determination in the lines above her
mouth. It was a face full of character, the face of a woman who by sheer
dint of dogged perseverance might accomplish any task she cared to set
herself. A smile of welcome gleamed in her eyes as she inquired eagerly:

"Well, dear, anything doing?"

Howard shook his head for all response and a look of disappointment
crossed the young wife's face.

"Say, that's tough, ain't it?" she exclaimed. "The janitor was here
again for the rent. He says they'll serve us with a dispossess. I told
him to chase himself, I was that mad."

Annie's vocabulary was emphatic, rather than choice. Entirely without
education, she made no pretense at being what she was not and therein
perhaps lay her chief charm. As Howard stooped to kiss her, she said
reproachfully:

"You've been drinking again, Howard. You promised me you wouldn't."

The young man made no reply. With an impatient gesture he passed on into
the flat and flung himself down in a chair in the dining room. From the
adjoining kitchen came a welcome odor of cooking.

"Dinner ready?" he demanded. "I'm devilish hungry."

"Yes, dear, just a minute," replied his wife from the kitchen. "There's
some nice Irish stew, just what you like."

The box-like hole where Howard sat awaiting his meal was the largest
room in a flat which boasted of "five and bath." There was a bedroom of
equally diminutive proportions and a parlor with wall paper so loud that
it talked. There was scarcely enough room to swing a cat