e winter
days--over his desk and ledger at the office, in his room alone,
with Harriet planning fresh triumphs beyond the partition, even by
Christine's fire, with Christine just across, sitting in silence and
watching his grave profile and steady eyes.

He had a little picture of Sidney--a snap-shot that he had taken
himself. It showed Sidney minus a hand, which had been out of range when
the camera had been snapped, and standing on a steep declivity
which would have been quite a level had he held the camera straight.
Nevertheless it was Sidney, her hair blowing about her, eyes looking
out, tender lips smiling. When she was not at home, it sat on K.'s
dresser, propped against his collar-box. When she was in the house, it
lay under the pin-cushion.

Two o'clock in the morning, then, and K. in his dressing-gown, with the
picture propped, not against the collar-box, but against his lamp, where
he could see it.

He sat forward in his chair, his hands folded around his knee, and
looked at it. He was trying to picture the Sidney of the photograph
in his old life--trying to find a place for her. But it was difficult.
There had been few women in his old life. His mother had died many years
before. There had been women who had cared for him, but he put them
impatiently out of his mind.

Then the bell rang.

Christine was moving about below. He could hear her quick steps. Almost
before he had heaved his long legs out of the chair, she was tapping at
his door outside.

"It's Mrs. Rosenfeld. She says she wants to see you."

He went down the stairs. Mrs. Rosenfeld was standing in the lower hall,
a shawl about her shoulders. Her face was white and drawn above it.

"I've had word to go to the hospital," she said. "I thought maybe you'd
go with me. It seems as if I can't stand it alone. Oh, Johnny, Johnny!"

"Where's Palmer?" K. demanded of Christine.

"He's not in yet."

"Are you afraid to stay in the house alone?"

"No; please go."

He ran up the staircase to his room and flung on some clothing. In the
lower hall, Mrs. Rosenfeld's sobs had become low moans; Christine stood
helplessly over her.

"I am terribly sorry," she said--"terribly sorry! When I think whose
fault all this is!"

Mrs. Rosenfeld put out a work-hardened hand and caught Christine's
fingers.

"Never mind that," she said. "You didn't do it. I guess you and I
understand each other. Only pray God you never have a child."

K. never forgot the scen