is tall young man who spoke so quietly of what
he had done for the sick woman, and went on with his work.

Sidney arrived a little after six, and from that moment the confusion in
the sick-room was at an end. She moved Christine from the stairs,
where Katie on her numerous errands must crawl over her; set Harriet to
warming her mother's bed and getting it ready; opened windows, brought
order and quiet. And then, with death in her eyes, she took up her
position beside her mother. This was no time for weeping; that would
come later. Once she turned to K., standing watchfully beside her.

"I think you have known this for a long time," she said. And, when he
did not answer: "Why did you let me stay away from her? It would have
been such a little time!"

"We were trying to do our best for both of you," he replied.

Anna was unconscious and sinking fast. One thought obsessed Sidney.
She repeated it over and over. It came as a cry from the depths of the
girl's new experience.

"She has had so little of life," she said, over and over. "So little!
Just this Street. She never knew anything else."

And finally K. took it up.

"After all, Sidney," he said, "the Street IS life: the world is only
many streets. She had a great deal. She had love and content, and she
had you."

Anna died a little after midnight, a quiet passing, so that only Sidney
and the two men knew when she went away. It was Harriet who collapsed.
During all that long evening she had sat looking back over years of
small unkindnesses. The thorn of Anna's inefficiency had always rankled
in her flesh. She had been hard, uncompromising, thwarted. And now it
was forever too late.

K. had watched Sidney carefully. Once he thought she was fainting, and
went to her. But she shook her head.

"I am all right. Do you think you could get them all out of the room and
let me have her alone for just a few minutes?"

He cleared the room, and took up his vigil outside the door. And, as he
stood there, he thought of what he had said to Sidney about the Street.
It was a world of its own. Here in this very house were death and
separation; Harriet's starved life; Christine and Palmer beginning a
long and doubtful future together; himself, a failure, and an impostor.

When he opened the door again, Sidney was standing by her mother's bed.
He went to her, and she turned and put her head against his shoulder
like a tired child.

"Take me away, K.," she said pitifully.

A