ufficiently large, but it was low ceiled and suggested the
basement of an old-fashioned house. It was badly lit, too. Only an
oil-lamp, on a table set with a cold supper for two, sought to discover
the obscure limits of its tunnel-like length.

There was no suggestion of poverty about the place. It was modest. That
was all. Its chief characteristic lay in the fact that it was obviously
the full extent of the present home of its occupants. At the far end
stood a bedstead, and by its side a large wicker hamper. The centre was
occupied by the supper table, and, at the other end, under the window,
which was carefully covered by heavy curtains, stood a child's cot.

For the rest there were the usual furnishings of a cheap apartment
house, where the proprietors only cater for the class of custom which
lives in a state of frequent and rapid migration.

A woman was sitting in front of a small anthracite stove. A book was in
her lap. But she was not reading. Her deep violet eyes were widely
gazing down into the fire glow through the mica front, in that dreaming
fashion which so soon becomes the habit of those condemned to prolonged
hours of solitude.

It was by no means the face of a completely happy and contented woman.
It was a tired face with the weariness which is of the mind rather than
of the body. There were a few tracings of lines about the eyes and the
pretty forehead which were out of place in a woman of her age. Only
anxiety could have set them there. Suspense, an unspoken dread of
something which never ceased to threaten. Now, in an unguarded moment,
when all disguise was permitted to fall from her, they were pronounced,
painfully pronounced.

Her thought was plainly regretful. It was also obviously troubled.
Occasionally she would start and listen as some sound outside penetrated
the profound stillness of the room. It was at these moments that her
glance would turn swiftly, and with some display of anxiety, to the
child's cot where she knew her baby lay sleeping. Once she sprang
nervously to her feet and passed over to the cot. She stood bending over
the child gazing yearningly, hungrily down at the innocent, beautiful
three-year-old life dreaming its hours away without understanding of
that which surrounded it, or that which haunted the mind of its mother.

Then the stove and the wicker chair claimed her again, as did the
suspense of waiting, with its burden of apprehension.

At last relief leapt to the trou