“Maybe he’s come in while I’ve been out,” said Trina to herself.  She went down Polk Street again, going towards the flat.  The rain had stopped, but the sidewalks were still glistening.  The cable cars trundled by, loaded with theatregoers.  The barbers were just closing their shops.  The candy store on the corner was brilliantly lighted and was filling up, while the green and yellow lamps from the drug store directly opposite threw kaleidoscopic reflections deep down into the shining surface of the asphalt.  A band of Salvationists began to play and pray in front of Frenna’s saloon.  Trina hurried on down the gay street, with its evening’s brilliancy and small activities, her shawl over her head, one hand lifting her faded skirt from off the wet pavements.  She turned into the alley, entered Zerkow’s old home by the ever-open door, and ran up-stairs to the room.  Nobody.

“Why, isn’t this funny,” she exclaimed, half aloud, standing on the threshold, her little milk-white forehead curdling to a frown, one sore finger on her lips.  Then a great fear seized upon her.  Inevitably she associated the house with a scene of violent death.

“No, no,” she said to the darkness, “Mac is all right.  He can take care of himself.”  But for all that she had a clear-cut vision of her husband’s body, bloated with seawater, his blond hair streaming like kelp, rolling inertly in shifting waters.

“He couldn’t have fallen off the rocks,” she declared firmly.  “There—­there he is now.”  She heaved a great sigh of relief as a heavy tread sounded in the hallway below.  She ran to the banisters, looking over, and calling, “Oh, Mac!  Is that you, Mac?” It was the German whose family occupied the lower floor.  The power-house clock struck nine.

“My God, where is Mac?” cried Trina, stamping her foot.

She put the shawl over her head again, and went out and stood on the corner of the alley and Polk Street, watching and waiting, craning her neck to see down the street.  Once, even, she went out upon the sidewalk in front of the flat and sat down for a moment upon the horse-block there.  She could not help remembering the day when she had been driven up to that horse-block in a hack.  Her mother and father and Owgooste and the twins were with her.  It was her wedding day.  Her wedding dress was in a huge tin trunk on the driver’s seat.  She had never been happier before in all her life.  She remembered how she got out of the hack and stood for a moment upon the horse-block, looking up at McTeague’s windows.  She had caught a glimpse of him at his shaving, the lather still on his cheek, and they had waved their hands at each other.  Instinctively Trina looked up at the flat behind her; looked up at the bay window where her husband’s “Dental Parlors” had been.  It was all dark; the windows had the blind, sightless appearance imparted by vacant, untenanted rooms.  A rusty iron rod projected mournfully from one of the window ledges.