r the second time within the week Kate went out in the street stunned
by the blow which had been dealt her: She stood uncertainly for a moment
on the edge of the sidewalk and then began slowly to untie the bridle
reins.

"Here's a message that came for you yesterday; we had no way of getting
it to you." The girl from the telephone office was regarding her
curiously.

Kate turned at the sound of a voice beside her, and took the message
which had been telephoned from the nearest telegraph office.

Have just learned of your trouble. Is there anything I can do for
you? All sympathy.

HUGH

She read it twice, carefully, while her eyes filled with tears of
longing, then she accompanied the girl to the telephone office where she
wrote her answer.

I need nothing. Thank you.

KATE PRENTICE

In the meantime Mrs. Toomey was becoming acquainted with a new phase of
her husband's character. She had thought she was familiar with all sides
of it, those for which she loved him and those which taxed her patience
and loyalty; but this moroseness, this brooding ugliness, was different.

He smoked continuously, ate little, drank more coffee than ever she had
known him to, and at night twisted and turned restlessly. She could not
account for it, since, so far as she knew, there was no more to trouble
him than the usual worry as to where their next meals were coming from.

She surreptitiously studied his face wearing this new expression, and
asked herself what would become of him with his violent temper,
illogical reasoning and lack of balance, if it were not for the
restraint of their association? Daily he became a stronger convert to
the doctrine that the world owed every one--himself in particular--a
living. It was one Mrs. Toomey did not hold with.

She was thankful now that she had not told him of Kate and her promise
and aroused hopes that would only have meant further disappointment, in
view of developments. She knew, of course, the current gossip to the
effect that the Security State Bank was about to foreclose and "set Kate
afoot," as the phrase was.

Mrs. Toomey was truly sorry. Her liking for Kate was more genuine than
any feeling of the kind she had had for another woman in a longer time
than she could remember. Because, perhaps, the girl was so strikingly
her opposite in every particular, she admired Kate exceedingly. The
freshness of her candid friendly face, her general wholesomeness
attract