The end came one morning after a month of illness and several days of unconsciousness, during which silence reigned in the house and all the family went about on tiptoe. Mrs. Gerhardt passed away with her dying gaze fastened on Jennie’s face for the last few minutes of consciousness that life vouchsafed her. Jennie stared into her eyes with a yearning horror. “Oh, mamma! mamma!” she cried. “Oh no, no!” Gerhardt came running in from the yard, and, throwing himself down by the bedside, wrung his bony hands in anguish. “I should have gone first!” he cried. “I should have gone first!” The death of Mrs. Gerhardt hastened the final breaking up of the family. Bass was bent on getting married at once, having had a girl in town for some time. Martha, whose views of life had broadened and hardened, was anxious to get out also. She felt that a sort of stigma attached to the home—to herself, in fact, so long as she remained there. Martha looked to the public schools as a source of income; she was going to be a teacher. Gerhardt alone scarcely knew which way to turn. He was again at work as a night watchman. Jennie found him crying one day alone in the kitchen, and immediately burst into tears herself. “Now, papa!” she pleaded, “it isn’t as bad as that. You will always have a home—you know that—as long as I have anything. You can come with me.” “No, no,” he protested. He really did not want to go with her. “It isn’t that,” he continued. “My whole life comes to nothing.” It was some little time before Bass, George and Martha finally left, but, one by one, they got out, leaving Jennie, her father, Veronica, and William, and one other—Jennie’s child. Of course Lester knew nothing of Vesta’s parentage, and curiously enough he had never seen the little girl. During the short periods in which he deigned to visit the house—two or three days at most—Mrs. Gerhardt took good care that Vesta was kept in the background. There was a play-room on the top floor, and also a bedroom there, and concealment was easy. Lester rarely left his rooms, he even had his meals served to him in what might have been called the living-room of the suite. He was not at all inquisitive or anxious to meet any one of the other members of the family. He was perfectly willing to shake hands with them or to exchange a few perfunctory words, but perfunctory words only. It was generally understood that the child must not appear, and so it did not.