“Thank you, ma’am.  Thank you hearty.  I’ll take good care of it.  I suppose you haven’t heard of the widow Robb?  Her name’s Patty, you know, and she’s got a beau.  He’s named Cake.  Luck plays tricks with love, don’t it?  Don’t get caught in a snow-storm.  You ain’t”—­his voice was anxious—­“you ain’t thinking of leaving us, are you?  The girls down here are needing of you, needing sore.  All of us are needing of you.”

I shook my head.  “Of course I’m not thinking of leaving you.”  I waved my hand in response to his wave of the bottle, and, not seeing where I went, I turned the corner and, head bent to keep out of my face the tiny particles of sleet and snow beginning to fall, walked for some distance before noticing where I was.

Much of my city, unknown to me a short while ago, was now familiar, but to much I was still a stranger, and presently I was wondering concerning the occupants of the houses I was passing.  The shabby gentility and dull respectability of the latter was depressing, and to escape the radiation of their dreariness I turned into first one street and then another, and as I walked the girl with the boyish face walked with me, the face with its hunted fear.  She had held the baby as if frightened, and when she turned the corner she was running.  She was so young.  Could the baby be hers?  It must be hers.  Nothing but a mother-face could have in it what hers had.  Why was she afraid, and of what?

The streets were becoming rough and unpaved before I noticed I was nearing the city limits, and, cutting across afield, I got into the Avenue, toward the end of which was Selwyn’s house.  As I neared it my steps slowed.  For years the Thorne property had been on the outskirts of the city, but progress had taken it in, and already houses, flagrantly modern and architecturally shameless, offered strong contrast to its perfect lines, its conscious dignity, its calm aloofness, and its stone walls which shielded it from gaping gaze and gave it privacy.  The iron gates were closed, the shutters drawn, and from the place stillness that was oppressive radiated, a stillness that was ominous.

Pride was undoubtedly Selwyn’s dominating characteristic.  Pride in his name, in its unstained honor, in the heritage of his fathers; and in the presence of his house it seemed an ugly dream—­the picture ever in my mind, the picture of Selwyn walking slowly with a young girl in the dark of a winter afternoon in a section of the city as removed from his as sunlight is removed from shadow.  In his nature was nothing that could make such association imaginable.  If no higher deterrent prevented, pride would protect him from doubtful situations.  He was sensitive to higher deterrents, however, as sensitive as I.