me plain; and her whole way of life changed.

Billy Gray had drifted back to the city of his beginnings and
happiness; was writing hack editorials and paragraphs for the little
weeklies which so infested San Francisco. She knew that their fortunes
were low, that only her inheritance, left in trust by her
grandparents, kept them moving. Also, a dim suspicion which she had
held of her father for years was taking shape in her mind--too young
that mind, yet, for any very strong belief in human conduct not
written in the tables of the law or in the Etiquette Book.

The current which fused these amorphic thoughts was generated in the
most commonplace manner. By custom, she went to the seminary on Monday
morning, staying there until Friday evening. It happened that the
death of a teacher made Friday an unexpected holiday. Returning on
Thursday afternoon, she found the house locked. She remembered that
this was "make-up day" at the weekly which took most of her father's
work; he must be in the office. She hesitated, wondering whether to
telephone for the key; decided to walk down town, since it was a
beaming, windless afternoon.

She came about a corner of Montgomery Street, turned in toward the
office of _The Whale_, and ran into the environs of a gathering city
crowd. The men were straining over backs and shoulders to see; the
women were pressing their hands convulsively to their faces with pity
and disgust.

"What's the answer?" some one called from the fringe.

"A drunk," came a voice from within, "plain drunk." The police arrived
just then, and cleared a way; through the rift they made, she saw them
lift--Billy Gray, her father.

In the limpness and horror of this, her first crisis, she did nothing,
said nothing; only stood there. Presently, she was aware that a
workman in soiled overalls had joined the policemen.

"Now that's all right," he was saying, "he's only dead to the world,
making no trouble for nobody. He works for _The Whale_ up above;
what's the good to pinch him?" "_The Whale_?" asked one of the
policemen; and hesitated on the word. In quick decision, then, he
whirled upon the crowd, pushed it back, cleared a space. The other
policeman and the man in the soiled overalls--he was foreman of _The
Whale_--picked up Billy Gray, who was turning and mumbling feebly, and
started to carry him upstairs. A sudden impulse of her limbs, an
instinct independent of her will, drew her toward them. The policeman,
clea