ed a lecture, and then an operation."

Joe listened. It was undoubtedly a relief to him to know that it had not
been Sidney; but if K. expected any remorse, he did not get it.

"If he is that sort, he deserves what he got," said the boy grimly.

And K. had no reply. But Joe was glad to talk. The hours he had spent
alone in the little room had been very bitter, and preceded by a time
that he shuddered to remember. K. got it by degrees--his descent of the
staircase, leaving Wilson lying on the landing above; his resolve to
walk back and surrender himself at Schwitter's, so that there could be
no mistake as to who had committed the crime.

"I intended to write a confession and then shoot myself," he told K.
"But the barkeeper got my gun out of my pocket. And--"

After a pause: "Does she know who did it?"

"Sidney? No."

"Then, if he gets better, she'll marry him anyhow."

"Possibly. That's not up to us, Joe. The thing we've got to do is to
hush the thing up, and get you away."

"I'd go to Cuba, but I haven't the money."

K. rose. "I think I can get it."

He turned in the doorway.

"Sidney need never know who did it."

"I'm not ashamed of it." But his face showed relief.

There are times when some cataclysm tears down the walls of reserve
between men. That time had come for Joe, and to a lesser extent for K.
The boy rose and followed him to the door.

"Why don't you tell her the whole thing?--the whole filthy story?" he
asked. "She'd never look at him again. You're crazy about her. I haven't
got a chance. It would give you one."

"I want her, God knows!" said K. "But not that way, boy."

Schwitter had taken in five hundred dollars the previous day.

"Five hundred gross," the little man hastened to explain. "But you're
right, Mr. Le Moyne. And I guess it would please HER. It's going hard
with her, just now, that she hasn't any women friends about. It's in the
safe, in cash; I haven't had time to take it to the bank." He seemed
to apologize to himself for the unbusinesslike proceeding of lending
an entire day's gross receipts on no security. "It's better to get him
away, of course. It's good business. I have tried to have an orderly
place. If they arrest him here--"

His voice trailed off. He had come a far way from the day he had walked
down the Street, and eyed Its poplars with appraising eyes--a far way.
Now he had a son, and the child's mother looked at him with tragic eyes.
It was arranged that K.