Just at this time Julia’s youngest uncle, Chester Cox, wrote his mother from the big prison at San Quentin that he was coming home.  The letter, pencilled on two sheets of lined, grayish paper, caused a good deal of discussion between Mrs. Cox, her husband, and her granddaughters.  Chester, now about thirty years old, had been pardoned because of late evidence in his favour, when a five-year term for burglary was but one quarter served, but in his old father’s eyes a jailbird was a jailbird, and Chester was still in some mysterious way to blame.  Mrs. Cox was only concerned because the boy was ill and out of a job and apt to prove a burden, but the three girls, frankly curious about him, nevertheless reserved judgment.  He had always been an idler, he had always been a weakling, but if he really were accused falsely, they could champion him still.

The day he had set for his return was a Sunday, but he arrived unexpectedly on the Saturday afternoon, to find great trouble in the Mission Street house.  Evelyn and Marguerite were free for the afternoon, and were in the kitchen with Julia and their grandmother.  It had lately come to Evelyn’s ears that her grandfather had been borrowing money on the little property, and old Mrs. Cox was beside herself with anger and fear.  The house was her one hope against a destitute old age.  She fairly writhed at the contemplation of her husband’s treachery in undermining that one stay.  While she was slaving and struggling, he had airily disposed of three hundred dollars.  She was stifled by the thought.

“He’d ought to be sent to jail for it!” the old woman said bitterly.

“You can’t do it,” Evelyn, the bearer of the badnews, assured her impatiently.

“Well, he’ll see what I can do, when he gets home!” Mrs. Cox muttered.  Julia, distressed by the scene, laid her hand over her grandmother’s old knotted one, as she sat beside her at the table, but could find no words with which to comfort her.  Her soul was sick with this fresh sordid revelation; she felt as if she must scream in another minute of existence in this dreary, dirty house, with the glaring sunshine streaming in the kitchen window and a high summer wind howling outside.

The talk was ended by a ring at the door, and Julia went through the dark, stifling passage to admit a lean, pale young man, with a rough growth of light hair on his sunken cheeks, and a curious look of not belonging to his clothes.

“It’s Uncle Chess, Grandma,” said she, leading the way back to the kitchen.  Mrs. Cox gave her youngest child a kiss, assuring him that she never would have known him, he looked like a ghost, she said, and Chester sat down and talked a little awkwardly to his mother and nieces.  His voice was husky, full of apologetic cadences; he explained painstakingly the chance that had brought him home twenty-four hours early, as if it were the most important thing in the world.  Julia, helping her grandmother with preparations for dinner, did not know why she found Chester’s presence unendurably trying; she did not know that it was pity that wrung her heart; she only wished he were not there.