w her disappear up the tenement stairs, and half an hour of
waiting did not see her come down again. But Mrs. Biggs was at the
studio. What could Jane be doing in that building?

The third day he was rewarded for his trouble. Shortly after she had
entered the building he saw Christiansen arrive. He evidently whistled
up the tube, for she came down at once and they went away, talking
earnestly. Jane seemed excited. Jerry rushed around the corner and up
the block. At the next crossing he came sauntering toward them.

"Oh, Jerry!" said Jane, surprised but unembarrassed.

"Good-morning, Mr. Christiansen," said Jerry shortly. "You're an early
riser."

"Yes."

"Do you, like my wife, take your exercise at this hour?"

"Sometimes. I exercise all day. I always walk."

"Mr. Christiansen is going with me to do an errand," Jane said.

"Don't let me detain you," Jerry remarked.

"We _are_ in rather a hurry," said Jane unconcernedly.

They went on their way, leaving Jerry to a fine, old-fashioned, male
rage. Here was a pretty how-de-do, where his own wife cavalierly
dismissed him to go off with her lover. There was no shadow of doubt in
his mind that Christiansen was in love with Jane, although, in spite of
all the evidence, he could not reconcile it to himself that Jane was in
love with Christiansen. But the tenement house, the rendezvous; what did
it all mean? Then he went back home and ascended to the nursery.

"Has Mrs. Paxton a key to your apartment, Mrs. Biggs?" he inquired
casually.

"Yes, sir. She has to have it to get into her room there. We keep it
under the mat."

"Her room?"

"Yes, sir. Didn't you know she kept her old room with me? Oh, mebbe I
shouldn't ha' told ye, sir."

"Oh--I suppose she must have told me; I've just forgotten it. Do her
friends go there? She's never asked me."

"Oh, no, sir; nobody comes there. A gentleman used to come, but that was
before her marriage."

"Big man, gray-black hair?"

"Yes, sir, that's him."

"Baby been asleep all morning?" he forced himself to ask, casually, as
if the other conversation was purely incidental.

"Yes, sir. He's a fine sleeper. My boy Billy, now--he was a poor one for
sleep." Mrs. Biggs's reminiscences were addressed to space, because
Jerry had not heard them. He walked downstairs and paced the studio,
trying to make up his mind what to do; whether to bide his time, or to
have the whole matter up for discussion the moment Jane returned.

He t