x, emptied of its contents and the last keepsake
pawned or sold, the end would come.

None of these anxieties had ever assailed him before. He had been like
a man walking in a dream, his gaze fixed on but one exit, regardless of
the dangers besetting his steps. Now the truth confronted him. He had
reached the limit of his resources. To hope for much from Kling was
idle. Such a situation could not last, nor could he count for long
either on the friendship or the sympathy of the big-hearted expressman's
wife. She had been absolutely sincere, and so had her husband, but that
made it all the more incumbent upon him to preserve his own independence
while still pursuing the one object of his life with undiminished
effort.

A flood of light from the suddenly opened church-door, followed by a
burst of pent-up melody, recalled him to himself. He waited until all
was dark again, rose to his feet, passed through the gate and, with a
brace of his shoulders and quickened step, walked on into Wall Street.

As he made his way along the deserted thoroughfare, where but a few
hours since the very air had been charged with a nervous energy whose
slightest vibration was felt the world over, the sombre stillness of
the ancient graveyard seemed to have followed him. Save for a private
watchman slowly tramping his round and an isolated foot-passenger
hurrying to the ferry, no soul but himself was stirring or awake except,
perhaps, behind some electric light in a lofty building where a janitor
was retiring or, lower down, some belated bookkeeper in search of an
error.

Leaving the grim row of tall columns guarding the front of the old
custom-house, he turned his steps in the direction of the docks, wheeled
sharply to the left, and continued up South Street until he stopped in
front of a ship-chandler's store.

Some one was at work inside, for the rays of a lantern shed their light
over piles of old cordage and heaps of rusty chains flanking the low
entrance.

Picking his way around some barrels of oil, he edged along a line of
boxes filled with ship's stuff until he reached an inside office, where,
beside a kerosene lamp placed on a small desk littered with papers, sat
a man in shirt-sleeves. At the sound of O'Day's step the occupant lifted
his head and peered out. The visitor passed through the doorway.

"Good evening, Carlin; I hoped you would still be up. I stopped on the
way down or I should have been here earlier."

A man of si