her, and stifled a groan.

"It is my damned yellow streak!" he muttered. "I must get over it--kill
it, pull it out by the roots. Why shouldn't I have my share of bad
luck? Others have plenty of it--even women and children. Poof! Be a man,
John Trott. Don't be a dirty shirker!"

A merry ripple of laughter came from the adjoining room, and he heard
Dora telling of the mistake she had made on the street in Washington,
and somehow he felt relieved. Surely good would come out of the plunge
he had made into those unknown waters, dark and deep as they seemed.
Wasn't Dora already better off? And what more could he desire than to
benefit a child like that materially and lastingly?

But the pain still clung and permeated. He heard the two visitors
bidding good night to Dora, and when they had gone down-stairs he went
into the other room, finding the child with her doll in her arms,
rocking it as a mother might a living babe.

"Now get to bed, Sis," he said, more tenderly than he had ever spoken to
her before. "Do you like it here?"

"Oh, very, very much!" she cried, enthusiastically. "Betty and Minnie
are the sweetest and best children I ever saw, and Harold is nice,
too--nice and polite, and awfully smart. He uses big words that I never
heard before. The girls want me to go with them to their school and
church. May I?"

"Yes," he returned. "Now get to bed. Sleep as late as you want to in the
morning. You don't have to get up before day to cook breakfast for me
now, eh?"

She smiled happily, but said nothing.

He yearned to kiss her, for through her companionship in his loneliness
she had become very dear to him, but that strode him as being a weak
thing for a man to do, and he left her without yielding to the impulse.

The air in his cell-like room was rather close, and he did not go to
sleep readily. There were so many things to think about--the work he had
to find as soon as possible, the clothes that must be bought for Dora,
for he wanted her to dress as well as her new friends. He decided to ask
Mrs. McGwire to help him make those purchases. As for the work, he was
sure he could find a job at good wages, for he had already looked over
the "Help wanted" advertisements in a morning paper and written down the
addresses of several firms of contractors and builders who were in need
of skilled labor.

After a long while he fell asleep, and when he waked in the morning he
heard Dora moving about in her room.

"Kid!" h