With inward as well as outward rigidity Van Landing waited.  To the movements of Carmencita’s hand waving him away he paid no attention.  In thick, heavy throbs his heart sent the blood to his face, then it receded, and for a moment the room was dark and he saw nothing.  To the “come in” of Carmencita the door opened, and he looked in its direction.  Noodles was alone.

“Where is she?” Carmencita’s voice was high and shrill in excitement and dismay.  “I told you to wait for her!  You know I told you to wait for her!”

Cap in hand, Noodles looked first at Van Landing and then at the child.  “Warn’t no her to wait for,” he said, presently.  “She ain’t there, and she didn’t go to the class to-night.  Miss James went for her.  Some of her kin-folks is in town staying with some their kin-folks, and she is spending the night with ’em.”  The now soiled and crumpled note was held toward Carmencita.  “She won’t be back till day after to-morrow, what’s Christmas eve, though she might come back to-morrow night, Fetch-It said.  Warn’t nobody there but Fetch-It—­leastways warn’t nobody else I seen.”

Van Landing looked at Carmencita, then turned sharply and went over toward the window.  A choking, stifling sensation made breathing difficult, and, the tension of the past few hours relaxed, he felt as one on the edge of a precipice from which at any moment he might topple over.  It was too cold to open the window, but he must have air.  Going to the couch, he took up his hat and coat, then came back and held out his hand.

“Give him this”—­he nodded at Noodles, “and tell your father good night.  And thank you, Carmencita, thank you for letting me come.  To-morrow—­” The room was getting black.  “I will see you to-morrow.”

A moment later he was out of the room and down the steps and on the street, and in the darkness he walked as one who feels something in his way he cannot see; and then he laughed, and the laugh was hard and bitter, and in it was a sound that was not good to hear.

The cold air stung his face, made breathing better, and after a while he looked up.  For many blocks he had walked unheedingly, but, hearing a church-bell strike the hour, he took out his watch and glanced at it.  To go home was impossible.  Turning into a side-street, he walked rapidly in a direction that led he knew not whither, and for a while let the stinging sensation of disappointment and rebellion possess him without restraint.  It was pretty cruel, this sudden shutting of the door of hope in his face.  The discovery of Frances’s presence in the city had brought again in full tumultuous surge the old love and longing, and the hours of waiting had been well-nigh unendurable.  And now he would have to wait until day after to-morrow.  He would go to-morrow night to this Mother Somebody.  What was her name?  He could remember nothing, was, indeed, as stupid as if he had been knocked in the head.  Well, he had been.  Where did this woman