in a very short time, and I shudder when
I think of the dangers which beset her. A shop like Kling's is no place
for a child like Masie."

Kitty had turned pale when Felix announced his probable departure,
something to which she had not yet given a thought, but she heard him to
the end.

"I will do all I can for Masie, but that can wait. And now I'm goin' to
talk to ye as if ye were my John, and ye got to be patient with me, Mr.
O'Day. God knows I'd help ye in any way I could, but ye've got to help
me a little so I can help ye the better. May I go on?"

"Help! How can I help?" he asked listlessly.

"By trustin' me--and I can be trusted, and so can John. I found out some
months ago that ye were Sir Felix O'Day, but ye never heard me blab it
to any livin' soul, nor did John either--not even to Father Cruse. I've
watched ye go in and out all these months, and many a night, tired as
I was, I didn't get to sleep, worryin' about ye until I'd heard ye shut
yer door. Ye said nothin' to me and I could say nothin' to ye. I knew
ye'd tell me when the time come and it has, with ye nigh crazy, and
she on her way to Sing Sing. What she's been through since that night I
brought her here, I don't know--but she'd 'a' broke your heart if ye'd
seen her staggerin' weak, followin' me and John like a whipped dog. I
thought then she had got the worst of it, somehow, and that she hadn't
deserved what had been handed out to her, and John thought so, too. What
it was I didn't know, but I've got somebody now who does know and who
will tell me the truth, and I'm askin' ye to give it to me straight.
If she was your wife she must be a lady, for ye wouldn't 'a' married
anybody else. And if she was a lady, how has it happened that she is
locked up in the Tombs, and that a gentleman like ye is working at
Otto's? And before ye answer, remember that I'm not askin' for meself,
but for you and the poor woman ye tried to find to-day."

His tired eyes had not left her own during the long outburst. He had
never doubted her sincerity nor her kindliness, but now, as he listened,
there stole over him a yearning, strange in one so habitually reticent,
to share with her the secret he had hidden all these months--except from
Father Cruse.

"Yes, you shall know," he answered, with a sigh of relief. "It is best
that somebody should know, and best of all that it should be you. But
first tell me how you found out that I could use my father's title--I
have never