Elysian fields out of the moral stench under your mother's roof."

"Good?" John sniffed. "Sam, don't talk to me of a God--yours or any
other man's. When you have been where I am now, you'll know more about
God than you do. God? God? God? You say he is everywhere. He's here
to-night, isn't he? Here in this room? There in the kitchen where she
left the dishes unwashed? Here where she left the door unlocked and ran
away, disgusted with me for leading her into such a mess."

"Hush, hush, my boy!" entreated Cavanaugh, a dry sob rasping his throat.
"Don't say any more! It is almost time for my train. I'm going up there
to-night and see what can be done. Tilly will talk to me. What could she
say here to these strangers? Now, don't go to work to-morrow. Things
will move along all right for one day without us, and you won't feel
like working, anyhow. I'll get back to-morrow night at ten o'clock. Wait
for me here."

The grim silence which now brooded over John gave consent, and Cavanaugh
rose and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't give up," he said. "I'm
sure I'll bring back good news. God will see to that."

"I'll wait for you, Sam," John consented, "but it won't be as you hope.
There is no God to see to anything. God didn't help my father, did he?
Neither will he help me. The whole thing is blind chance. 'Lead us not
into temptation'! What a pitiful prayer! My mother, you say, was led in
when she was not more than a girl. Were the designing men on her track
God's agents, and is my fate, and my young wife's, a part of some plan
laid in heaven?"

"Wait, wait!" Cavanaugh reached down and took John's inert hand and
pressed it. "I'll see you to-morrow night."

CHAPTER XXXI

John slept but little that night. There must have been a deep
undercurrent of sentiment in his make-up, despite his practical type of
mind, for the sight of everything Tilly had touched gave him infinite
pain. He waked frequently through the night, and even while sleeping was
tossed and torn by innumerable tantalizing dreams. He was awake at
sunup, and again the lonely mental spectator of the clouded panorama of
the day before.

There was a sound of pans and pots being handled in the kitchen, and he
got up and went to the kitchen door. It was Dora making a fire in the
range. She glanced up, saw him, smiled sheepishly, and lowered her head.

"There is nobody over home," she explained, apologetically. "They went
off last night to be gone two days