s later on she might find the courage to do it.

"I'll have to tell him something," she thought with a sudden
upwelling of feeling as regarded the seriousness of this duty. "If I
don't do it soon and I should go and live with him and he should find
it out he would never forgive me. He might turn me out, and then where
would I go? I have no home now. What would I do with Vesta?"

She turned to contemplate him, a premonitory wave of terror
sweeping over her, but she only saw that imposing and comfort-loving
soul quietly reading his letters, his smoothly shaved red cheek and
comfortable head and body looking anything but militant or like an
avenging Nemesis. She was just withdrawing her gaze when he looked
up.

"Well, have you washed all your sins away?" he inquired
merrily.

She smiled faintly at the allusion. The touch of fact in it made it
slightly piquant.

"I expect so," she replied.

He turned to some other topic, while she looked out of the window,
the realization that one impulse to tell him had proved unavailing
dwelling in her mind. "I'll have to do it shortly," she thought, and
consoled herself with the idea that she would surely find courage
before long.

Their arrival in New York the next day raised the important
question in Lester's mind as to where he should stop. New York was a
very large place, and he was not in much danger of encountering people
who would know him, but he thought it just as well not to take
chances. Accordingly he had the cabman drive them to one of the more
exclusive apartment hotels, where he engaged a suite of rooms; and
they settled themselves for a stay of two or three weeks.

This atmosphere into which Jennie was now plunged was so wonderful,
so illuminating, that she could scarcely believe this was the same
world that she had inhabited before. Kane was no lover of vulgar
display. The appointments with which he surrounded himself were always
simple and elegant. He knew at a glance what Jennie needed, and bought
for her with discrimination and care. And Jennie, a woman, took a keen
pleasure in the handsome gowns and pretty fripperies that he lavished
upon her. Could this be really Jennie Gerhardt, the washerwoman's
daughter, she asked herself, as she gazed in her mirror at the figure
of a girl clad in blue velvet, with yellow French lace at her throat
and upon her arms? Could these be her feet, clad in soft shapely shoes
at ten dollars a pair, these her hands adorned with