num">[Pg 51] very distressing, I admit, but then, dear, it was all so long ago. He hasn't been in Kenton City for two years and more, and I've no doubt he pulled himself together long since, and is leading a straight life somewhere. He had lots in him, with all his recklessness. A chap like that, with no family hanging about his neck, and with his brains, and only his own living to make, could forge ahead almost anywhere."

"But John, I'm sure I saw him to-day, and suppose I should tell you that he was—begging?"

Barclay almost smiled at her earnest, troubled face, as he replaced his cup on the table.

"Begging?" he answered. "I'm afraid I couldn't bring myself to believe you, violet-eyes. Even granting that he has fallen as low as that, which I should think one of the most unlikely things in the world, it would hardly be in Kenton City, would it?—a place where his face is known to a thousand people. Tell me about it. What makes you think you saw him?"[Pg 52]

"I was shopping this morning," said Natalie, "all alone; and as I came out of Kendrick's and was just about to get into the brougham, I saw that someone was holding the door open for me. I looked up carelessly, as one naturally would under the circumstances, and, John—I know it was he! At first I thought so, and then I didn't, because he was so changed, so thin and pale, and because he had a beard. So, before I thought what I was doing, I stepped into the brougham, and put my hand on the door to close it. Then I looked up again, and saw his face, peering in at me through the glass, and that time there couldn't be any mistake. It was! I was going to speak, but he was gone in a flash. I saw him disappearing in the crowd before the shop—slinking, John!—with that dreadfully pathetic air which all begga