I have hunted for them where
I thought he would be sure to spend it, in the richer cafes
and restaurants, outside the opera-houses and the fashionable
theatres--places where two strangers in the city would naturally spend
their evenings, and a woman loving light and color as she did would want
to go.

"All these theories were upset last night when Mrs. Cleary gave me some
details of a woman she had picked up near your church. She found her, it
seems, some months ago--last April, in fact--on the steps of a private
house near your church--here on 29th Street--took her home and made her
spend the night there. In the morning she disappeared without any one
seeing her. Yesterday, while moving the bureau in my room, Mrs. Cleary
found a sleeve-link on the carpet; she thought it was one I had dropped.
I have it in my trunk. It is one of a pair my wife gave me on my
birthday, the year we were married. I missed it from my jewel case after
she left, and thought somebody had stolen it. Now I know that my wife
must have taken it, and then dropped it at Mrs. Cleary's. So I came
here tonight hoping against hope--it was so many months ago--to get
some further information regarding her. Then I remembered that I had not
asked Mrs. Cleary what the woman looked like, and I was about to return
home, when that poor girl staggered in, and I got a look at her face. I
lost my hold on myself then and--"

He sprang to his feet and began striding across the room, his eyes
blazing, one clinched fist upraised: "By God! Father Cruse, I know
something of Dalton's earlier life and of what he is capable. And I tell
you right here, that if he has brought my wife to that, I shall kill him
the moment I set my eyes on him. To take a child of a woman, foolish and
vain as she was--stupid if you will--and--" he halted, covered his face
in his hands, and broke into sobs.

During the long recital Father Cruse had neither spoken nor moved. He
was accustomed to such outbursts, but it had been many years since he
had seen so strong a man weep as bitterly. Better let the storm pass--he
would master himself the sooner.

A full minute elapsed, and then, with a groan that seemed to come from
the depths of his being, O'Day lifted his head, brushed the hot tears
from his eyes, and continued:

"You must forgive me, for I am utterly broken up. But I can't go on any
longer this way! I have got to let go--I have got to talk to somebody.
That dear woman with whom I live