fully. There was a smudge of soot on her nose which gave
her face a grotesque look. Her bare legs and feet were dust-coated and
scrawny.

"I want to be here when Mr. Cavanaugh comes back," she contended, almost
defiantly, a shadow of rigid doggedness in her eyes.

"But you can't," he retorted with irritation. "It will be late at night
and you should be in bed."

"I want to know what he has to say," Dora persisted, putting more wood
into the range. "Tilly was nice and good to me, and I want to know if
she is coming back. Besides--besides, _you_ want her."

"You can't sit up around here," he said, firmly. "You've got to go
home."

She said nothing. He thought he had offended her and was sorry for it,
but when supper was over he prevailed upon her to go. "Poor little rat!"
he mused, as he stood at the gate and watched her vanish in the night.
"She's never had a chance, and she'll never have one. Huh! Sam's God and
old Whaley's is busy counting the hairs of her head and no harm will
ever come to her--oh no, none at all!"

John paced back and forth in the little front yard. Eight o'clock came;
nine; ten, and a little later he heard the whistle of the south-bound
train as it drew near the town. The last street-car for the night would
be leaving the Square in a few minutes. Cavanaugh would take it. He
seldom rode in a cab, and time was too valuable for him to walk
to-night.

The minutes passed. Presently he heard the rumble of the little car as
it crossed an elevated trestle a half-mile away, then he saw its lighted
windows flitting through the pines and oaks which bordered its tracks.
It paused at the terminus. John heard the driver ordering his horse
around to the other end, and he retreated into the house. Sam should not
catch him there watching as if life or death hung on his report. It was
one thing to feel a thing, and another to show it like weak women who
weep openly for the dead, or men who cry out in pain like spoiled
children. He went into the parlor and sat down. The outer night was very
still, so still that he heard Cavanaugh's heavy tread when he was yet
some distance away. Thump, thump, thump! John found himself counting the
steps.

"Why am I like this?" he questioned himself. "If it is to be, it _is_ to
be, and that is the end of it. I can bear it. Why not? Why shouldn't a
man bear anything that comes his way--anything, anything, even--even
_this_?"

Cavanaugh was at the gate now. He was noiselessly