"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 live? The child had
refused to tell him. With a sudden stop he looked around. Where was
he? He had walked miles in and out of streets as unknown to him as if
part of a city he had never been in, and he had no idea where he was.
A sudden fear gripped him. Where did Carmencita live? He had paid no
attention to the streets they were on when she took him to the house
she called home. He was full of other thought, but her address, of