Gerhardt read this letter with a solemn countenance, Was it really true? Would they be taking a larger house if they were not permanently united? After all these years and all this lying? Could he have been mistaken? Well, it was high time—but should he go? He had lived alone this long time now—should he go to Chicago and live with Jennie? Her appeal did touch him, but somehow he decided against it. That would be too generous an acknowledgment of the fact that there had been fault on his side as well as on hers. Jennie was disappointed at Gerhardt’s refusal. She talked it over with Lester, and decided that she would go on to Cleveland and see him. Accordingly, she made the trip, hunted up the factory, a great rumbling furniture concern in one of the poorest sections of the city, and inquired at the office for her father. The clerk directed her to a distant warehouse, and Gerhardt was informed that a lady wished to see him. He crawled out of his humble cot and came down, curious as to who it could be. When Jennie saw him in his dusty, baggy clothes, his hair gray, his eye brows shaggy, coming out of the dark door, a keen sense of the pathetic moved her again. “Poor papa!” she thought. He came toward her, his inquisitorial eye softened a little by his consciousness of the affection that had inspired her visit. “What are you come for?” he asked cautiously. “I want you to come home with me, papa,” she pleaded yearningly. “I don’t want you to stay here any more. I can’t think of you living alone any longer.” “So,” he said, nonplussed, “that brings you?” “Yes,” she replied; “Won’t you? Don’t stay here.” “I have a good bed,” he explained by way of apology for his state. “I know,” she replied, “but we have a good home now and Vesta is there. Won’t you come? Lester wants you to.” “Tell me one thing,” he demanded. “Are you married?” “Yes,” she replied, lying hopelessly. “I have been married a long time. You can ask Lester when you come.” She could scarcely look him in the face, but she managed somehow, and he believed her. “Well,” he said, “it is time.” “Won’t you come, papa?” she pleaded. He threw out his hands after his characteristic manner. The urgency of her appeal touched him to the quick. “Yes, I come,” he said, and turned; but she saw by his shoulders what was happening. He was crying. “Now, papa?” she pleaded. For answer he walked back into the dark warehouse to get his things. CHAPTER XXXVIII