g flying wedges, swooping down on
other wedges--strangers all--the whole ending in roars of laughter and
"Happy New Year's," repeated again and again until the next collision.

None of this roused Felix as, with heavy heart, he turned into Kitty's.
Of what the morrow would bring forth he dared not think. Father Cruse,
he knew, would do what he could to save Barbara, and the British
consul--a man he had always avoided--might help. But nothing of all
this could lighten his load or relieve his pain. She might be given
her freedom for a time, or she might be turned over to one of the
reformatories for a term of years--either course meant untold suffering
to a woman reared as his wife had been. These mental tortures of the day
had burned their way into his brain, as branding-irons burn into flesh,
the agony seaming the lines of his face and deep-hollowing the eyes,
forming scars that might take years to efface.

As his fingers gripped the knob of Kitty's outside office, shouts of
"Happy New Year" rang out from a group of girls showering each other
with snowballs.

"Pray God," he said to himself, "that it be better than the one which is
passing," and stepped inside, to find Kitty in the kitchen.

"I have come to talk to you," he said, speaking as a man whose strength
is far spent. "And if you do not mind, I will ask you to go into the
sitting-room where we shall not be disturbed. I have something to say to
you. Will you be alone?"

Kitty gave a start. She knew at once that some new development had
brought him to her at this hour.

"Yes, not a soul but me. John and Bobby are up to the Grand Central,
Mike's bailed out, and yer tramp just come over from Otto's. They're
cleanin' out the stables. Is it some news ye have of her?"

"No--nothing more than you know. That must wait until to-morrow. Nothing
can be done to-night."

She followed him into the room, dragged out a chair from against the
wall, waited until he had slipped off his mackintosh, and then seated
herself beside him.

"No," he repeated, passing his hand across his eyes as if to shut out
some haunting vision. "There is no news. She is in a cell, I suppose. My
God, what does it all mean!"

He paused, his head averted, staring straight ahead.

"You have been very kind to me, Mrs. Cleary, since I have been here--you
and your husband. You may not have realized it, but I do not think I
could have gone through the year without you--you and little Masie. I
have