nxiety, and Mr. Lanhearne went to his side.

"I am better," he said with a heavy sigh. "I knew--I knew this poor
woman! I told you I was once on the road with a company. She was in
it. Her husband was a brute--a mean, selfish, cowardly brute--he ought
to be dead. I should like to help her--to see her--what is the street?
the number? Excuse me--I was shocked!"

"I see, Mr. Tresham," answered Ada, kindly. She had some ivory tablets
by her side, and she looked at them and said, "It is a very long
way--One Hundred and Seventieth Street--here is the address. I shall
be glad if you can do anything to help. I am sure she is worthy--she
has had good parents and been taught to pray."

"My dear Ada," said Mr. Lanhearne, "sorrow forces men and women down
upon their knees; even dumb beasts in their extremity cry unto God,
and He heareth them. And as for being worthy of help--if worthiness
were the condition, which of us durst pray for consolation in the hour
of our trouble? God has a nobler scale. He sends his rain upon the
just and the unjust, and He never yet asked a suppliant, 'Whose son
art thou?'"

Roland was grateful for this little discussion. It gave him a minute
or two in which to summon his soul to face the position. He was able
when Mr. Lanhearne ceased speaking to say:

"Mademoiselle Denasia is a Cornish woman. She comes from a village not
far from where my father lived. I feel that I ought to stand by her in
her sorrow. I shall be glad to do anything Miss Lanhearne thinks it
right to do."

The subject was then dropped, but Roland could take up no other
subject. With all his faults, he was still a creature full of warm
human impulses. There was nothing of the cold, calculating villain
about him. He was really shocked at the turn events had taken. Mr.
Lanhearne, who knew the world of men which Ada did not know, mentally
accused his handsome, sympathetic secretary of some knowledge of the
unfortunate singer which it would be best not to investigate; but Ada
thought his emotion to be entirely the outcome of an unusually tender
and affectionate nature.

The incident affected the evening unhappily. Roland was not able
either to talk or read, and Mr. Lanhearne, out of pure sympathy for
the miserable young man, retired to his own apartment very early. This
was always the signal for Roland's dismissal, and five minutes after
it Mr. Lanhearne, looking from his window into the bleak, wind-swept
street, saw Roland rapidly