“Not a line of any kind,” came the answer, followed by a sidewise movement of the gray head, as if its owner had long since abandoned hope from that quarter. “Do you think anything is the matter?” “Nothin', or I should 'a' 'eard. My notion is that Martha kep' on to Toronto with that sick man she nursed on the steamer. Maybe she's got work stiddy and isn't a-goin' to come back.” “But she would have let you KNOW?” There was a ring of anxiety now, tinged with a certain impatience. “Perhaps she would, Mr. Felix, and perhaps she wouldn't. Since our mother died Martha gets rather cocky sometimes. Likes to be her own boss and earn her own living. I've often 'eard her say it before I left 'ome, and she HAS earned it, I must say--and she's got to, same as all of us. I suppose you been keepin' it up same as usual--trampin' and lookin'?” “Yes.” This came as the mere stating of a fact. “And I suppose there ain't nothin' new--no clew--nothin' you can work on?” The speaker felt assured there was not, but it might be an encouragement to suggest its possibility. “No, not the slightest clew.” “Better give it up, Mr. Felix, you're only wastin' your time. Be worse maybe when you do come up agin it.” The ship-chandler was in earnest; every intonation proved it. O'Day arose from his seat and looked down at his companion. “That is not my way, Carlin, nor is it yours; and I have known you since I was a boy.” “And you are goin' to keep it up, Mr. Felix?” “Yes, until I know the end or reach my own.” “Well, then, God's help go with ye!” Into the shadows again--past long rows of silent warehouses, with here and there a flickering gas-lamp--until he reached Dover Street. He had still some work to do up-town, and Dover Street would furnish a short cut along the abutment of the great bridge, and so on to the Elevated at Franklin Square. He was evidently familiar with its narrow, uneven sidewalk, for he swung without hesitation into the gloom and, with hands hooked behind his back, his stick held, as was his custom, close to his armpit, made his way past its shambling hovels and warehouses. Now and then he would pause, following with his eyes the curve of the great steel highway, carried on the stone shoulders of successive arches, the sweep of its lines marked by a procession of lights, its outstretched, interlocked palms gripped close. The memory of certain streets in London came to him--those near its own great bridges, especially the city dump at Black-friars and the begrimed buildings hugging the stone knees of London Bridge, choking up the snakelike alleys and byways leading to the Embankment. Crossing under the Elevated, he continued along the side of the giant piers and wheeled into a dirt-choked, ill-smelling street, its distant outlet a blaze of electric lights. It was now the dead hour of the twenty-four--the hour before the despatch of the millions of journals, damp from the presses. He was the only human being in sight.