Frank did not turn nor start as Windham had expected. One might have thought he did not hear. At length, however, he said slowly, "I suspected that--a little. But I want to know." "I--can't tell you more," said the other brokenly. "Who--who was her mother, Uncle Bob?" "If you love her, Frank, don't ask that question." The young man snapped a dry twig from a tree and broke it with a sort of silent concentration into half a dozen bits. "Then--it's true ... the tale heard round town! That you and--" "Yes, yes," Windham interrupted, "Frank, it's true." "The--procuress?" "Frank! For God's sake!" Windham's fingers gripped his nephew's arm. "Don't let Maizie know. I've tried to live it down these twenty years...." "Damn it, do you think I'd tell Aunt Maizie?" "It's--I can't believe it yet! That you--" "Maizie wouldn't leave her mother." With a flicker of defiance Robert answered him. "I was young, rudderless, after my people went East.... A little wild, I guess." "So you sought consolation?" "Call it what you like," the other answered. "Some things are too strong for men. They overwhelm one--like Fate." Frank began pacing back and forth, his fingers opening and shutting spasmodically. "Uncle Bob," he said at length, "... after you married, what became--" "Her mother sent the child East--to a sister. She was well raised--educated. If she'd only stayed there, in that Massachusetts town!" "Then--Bertha didn't know?" "Not till she came to San Francisco, after her mother's death. She had to come to settle the estate. The mother left her everything--a string of tenements. She was rich." "Bertha came to you, then, I suppose." "Yes, she came to me," said Robert Windham. Suddenly, as though the memory overwhelmed him, Windham's face sank forward in his hands. "She was very sweet," his voice broke pitifully. "I--loved her." * * * * * Several days later Frank and his father paid a visit to the ruined city. One had to get passes in Oakland and wear them on one's hat. Sightseers were not admitted nor carried on ferry boats, trains. Already Telegraph Hill was dotted with new habitations. It was rumored that Andrea Sbarbora, banker and patron of the Italian Colony, was bringing a carload of lumber from Seattle which he would sell to fire sufferers on credit and at cost. The spirit of rehabilitation was strong. Frank was immensely cheered by it. But Francisco was overwhelmed by the desolation. "I am going South," he told his son. "I can't bear to see this. I don't even know where I am." It was true. One felt lost in those acres of ashes and debris. Familiar places seemed beyond memorial reconstruction, so smitten was the mind by this horror of leveled buildings, gutted walls and blackened streets.