rnin' paper--about the only
time I get to read it. Will ye sit down and wait till John comes in?
Hold on 'til I get ye a cup of hot coffee and--"

"No, Mrs. Cleary. I will go to bed, if you do not mind."

"Oh, but the coffee will put new life into ye, and--"

"Thanks, but it would be more likely to put it OUT of me if it kept me
awake. Can I reach my room this way or must I go outside?"

"Ye can go through this door--wait, I'll go wid ye and show ye about the
light and where ye'll find the water. It's dark on the stairs and ye may
stumble. I'll go on ahead and turn up the gas in the hall," she called
back, as she mounted the steps and threw wide his room door. "Not much
of a place, is it? But ye can get plenty of fresh air, and the bed's not
bad. Ye can see for yourself," and her stout fist sunk into its middle.
"And there's your trunks and tin chest, and the hat-box is beside the
wash-stand, and the waterproof coat's in the closet. We have breakfast
at seven o'clock, and ye'll eat down-stairs wid me and John. And now
good night to ye."

Felix thanked her for her attention in his simple, straightforward way,
and, closing the door upon her, dropped into a chair.

The night's experience had been like a sudden awakening. His anxiety
over his dwindling finances and his disappointment over Carlin's news
had been put to flight by the suffering of the man who had tried to rob
him. There were depths, then, to which human suffering might drive a
man, depths he himself had never imagined or reached--horrible, deadly
depths, without light or hope, benumbing the best in a man, destroying
his purposes by slow, insidious stages.

He arose from his chair and began walking up and down the small room,
stopping now and then to inspect a bureau drawer or to readjust one of
the curtains shading the panes of glass. In the same absent-minded way
he drew out one of the trunks, unlocked it, paused now and then with
some garment in his hand only to awake again to consciousness and resume
his task, pushing the trunk back at last under the bed and continuing
his walk about the narrow room, always haunted by the tramp's haggard,
hopeless look.

Again he felt the mysterious sense of kinship in pain that wipes away
all distinctions. With it, too, there came suddenly another sense--that
of an overwhelming compassion out of which new purposes are born to
human souls.

The encounter, then, had been both a blessing and a warning. He would
now