th the cost of Gerhardt's
presence added? Bass might have contributed more of his weekly
earnings, but he did not feel called upon to do it. And so the small
sum of nine dollars weekly must meet as best it could the current
expenses of rent, food, and coal, to say nothing of incidentals, which
now began to press very heavily. Gerhardt had to go to a doctor to
have his hands dressed daily. George needed a new pair of shoes.
Either more money must come from some source or the family must beg
for credit and suffer the old tortures of want. The situation
crystallized the half-formed resolve in Jennie's mind.

Lester's letter had been left unanswered. The day was drawing near.
Should she write? He would help them. Had he not tried to force money
on her? She finally decided that it was her duty to avail herself of
this proffered assistance. She sat down and wrote him a brief note.
She would meet him as he had requested, but he would please not come
to the house. She mailed the letter, and then waited, with mingled
feelings of trepidation and thrilling expectancy, the arrival of the
fateful day.

CHAPTER XXII

The fatal Friday came, and Jennie stood face to face with this new
and overwhelming complication in her modest scheme of existence. There
was really no alternative, she thought. Her own life was a failure.
Why go on fighting? If she could make her family happy, if she could
give Vesta a good education, if she could conceal the true nature of
this older story and keep Vesta in the background perhaps,
perhaps--well, rich men had married poor girls before this, and
Lester was very kind, he certainly liked her. At seven o'clock she
went to Mrs. Bracebridge's; at noon she excused herself on the pretext
of some work for her mother and left the house for the hotel.

Lester, leaving Cincinnati a few days earlier than he expected, had
failed to receive her reply; he arrived at Cleveland feeling sadly out
of tune with the world. He had a lingering hope that a letter from
Jennie might be awaiting him at the hotel, but there was no word from
her. He was a man not easily wrought up, but to-night he felt
depressed, and so went gloomily up to his room and changed his linen.
After supper he proceeded to drown his dissatisfaction in a game of
billiards with some friends, from whom he did not part until he had
taken very much more than his usual amount of alcoholic stimulant. The
next morning he arose with a vague idea of aba