u go. And
now good-by. Be brave, and don't reproach yourself. Remember that he
would not wish it."

The door opened, and Virginia came in, flushed with rapid walking. She
had heard the news on the street and had hurried back to the hotel.

Her eyes asked of Ridgway: "Does she know?" and he answered in the
affirmative. Straight to Aline she went and wrapped her in her arms,
the latent mothering instinct that is in every woman aroused and
dormant.

"Oh, my dear, my dear," she cried softly.

Ridgway slipped quietly from the room and left them together.

CHAPTER 24. A GOOD SAMARITAN

Yesler, still moving slowly with a walking stick by reason of his green
wound, left the street-car and made his way up Forest Road to the house
which bore the number 792. In the remote past there had been some
spasmodic attempt to cultivate grass and raise some shade-trees along
the sidewalks, but this had long since been given up as abortive. An
air of decay hung over the street, the unmistakable suggestion of
better days. This was writ large over the house in front of which
Yesler stopped. The gate hung on one hinge, boards were missing from
the walk, and a dilapidated shutter, which had once been green, swayed
in the breeze.

A woman of about thirty, dark and pretty but poorly dressed, came to
the door in answer to his ring. Two little children, a boy and a girl,
with their mother's shy long-lashed Southern eyes of brown, clung to
her skirts and gazed at the stranger.

"This is where Mr. Pelton lives, is it not?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Is he at home?"

"Yes, sir."

"May I see him?"

"He's sick."

"I'm sorry to hear it. Too sick to be seen? If not, I should like very
much to see him. I have business with him."

The young woman looked at him a little defiantly and a little
suspiciously. "Are you a reporter?"

Sam smiled. "No, ma'am."

"Does he owe you money?" He could see the underlying blood dye her
dusky cheeks when she asked the question desperately, as it seemed to
him with a kind of brazen shame to which custom had inured her. She had
somehow the air of some gentle little creature of the forests defending
her young.

"Not a cent, ma'am. I don't want to do him any harm."

"I didn't hear your name."

"I haven't mentioned it," he admitted, with the sunny smile that was a
letter of recommendation in itself. "Fact is I'd rather not tell it
till he sees me."

From an adjoining room a querulous voice broke in