“Yes, it is.  The widow lady is a dressmaker, and she has three children.  We were talking about it only yesterday.  Her father’s feeble-minded, poor old man!  I take him in some doughnuts whenever I fry ’em.  Mr. Curtis, don’t worry; I’ll fix it, somehow!  And until I get moved, I won’t answer the bell here.  Look!  I’ll give you a key, and you can come in without ringing if you want to.”

“No—­no!  I don’t want a key!  I wouldn’t take a key for a million dollars!”

Lily’s quick flush showed how innocent her offer had been.  “I suppose that doesn’t sound very high toned—­to offer a gentleman a key?  But I’ll tell you!  I ain’t giving any door keys to my house.  Jacky ain’t ever going to feel funny about his mother,” she said, sharply.

It was on the tip of Maurice’s tongue to say, “Nor about his father!” but he was silent.  It was the first time his mind had articulated his paternity, and the mere word made him dumb with disgust.  Lily, however, was her kind little self again, full of promises to “clear out,” and reassurances that “she” would never get on to it.

It was then that the grimness of the situation for Maurice lightened for a ridiculous moment.  Jacky, breathing very hard, peered from behind his mother, and stretched out to Maurice an extremely dirty, tightly clenched fist.  “I got a—­a pre-present for you,” he explained, panting.  Maurice, in a great hurry to get away, paused to put out his hand, in which his son placed, very gently, a slimy, half-smoked cigar.  “Found it,” Jacky said, in a stertorous whisper, “in the gutter.”

It was impossible not to laugh, and Maurice swallowed his impatience long enough to say, “Jacobus, you overwhelm me!” Then he took his departure, holding the gift between a reluctant thumb and finger.  “Funny little beggar,” he said to himself, and pitched the stub into the gutter from which Jacky had salvaged it; he didn’t look back to see his son hanging over the palings, watching the fate of his present with stricken eyes...  So it was that, when the day came that Eleanor did actually begin to search for what was hidden, Maple Street was empty of possibilities; Lily had flitted away into the secrecy of the two-family house on Ash Street.

It was nearly three months before the search began.  Edith had gone home, Mrs. Newbolt was at the sea-shore, and Maurice was in and out—­away for two or three days at a time on office business, and when at home absent almost every evening with some of those youthful acquaintances who seemed ignorant of Eleanor’s existence.  So there were long hours when, except for her little old dog, she was entirely alone—­alone, to brood over Maurice’s queer look when she had accused him of having an “acquaintance on Maple Street”; and by and by she said, “I’ll find out who it is!” Yet she had moments of trying to tear from her mind the idea of any concealment, because the mere suspicion was an insult to Maurice!