ere the father sat motionless, while the clock outside in the
hall struck two, and three, and four. This was Hetty's baby, and where
was Hetty? Alone with her little fretful mother, moving from
boarding-house to boarding-house. Pretty no longer, buoyed up by the
hope of an operatic career no longer, pinched--as they must be
pinched--in money matters.

The thought came to him suddenly that he must see her; and though he
fought it as unwelcome and distasteful, it grew rapidly into a
conviction. He must see her again, must have a long talk with her, must
ascertain that nothing he could do for the woman who had been his wife
was left undone. He was no longer the exacting, unsuccessful boy she
had left so unceremoniously; he was a man now, standing on his own
feet, and with a recognized position in the community. The little
fretful baby was a well-brushed young person who attended kindergarten
and Sunday School. A new era of respectability and prosperity had set
in. Hetty, his newly awakened sense of justice and his newly aroused
ambition told him, must somehow share it. Not that there could ever be
a complete reconciliation between them, but there could be good-will,
there could be a readjustment and a friendlier understanding.

The thought of Sidney came suddenly upon his idle musings with a shock
that made his heart sick. Gracious, beautiful, and fresh, although she
was older than Hetty, how far she was removed from this sordid story of
his, this darker side of his life! Perhaps months from now, his
troubled thoughts ran on, he would tell her of his visit to Hetty. For
he had determined to visit her.

Just at dawn he left the house and went out of his own gate. His face
was pale, his eyes deeply ringed and his head ached furiously, but it
was with a sort of content that he took his seat in the early train for
San Francisco. He sank into a reverie, head propped on hand, that
lasted until his journey was almost over; but once in the city, his old
dread of seeing his wife came over him again, and it was only after a
leisurely luncheon at the club that Barry took a Turk Street car to the
dingy region where Hetty lived.

The row of dirty bay-windowed houses on either side of the street, and
the dust and papers blowing about in the hot afternoon wind, somehow
reminded him forcibly of old days and ways. With a sinking heart he
went up one of the flights of wooden steps and asked at the door for
Mrs. Valentine. A Japanese boy