But just what this crime was, he still managed to keep from realizing—even when, after mailing his letter and sitting for an hour in a kind of stupour at his desk, he rose, took a book from the shelf, and went away to find a room. The book was “The Bab Ballads.” He took the Illinois Central in, and a north side elevated train out again, as though seeking to be as far as possible from the studio. He got off, at a venture, at Wilson Avenue, and within an hour found a small apartment of two rooms and bath, furnished “for light-housekeeping,” situated over a coffee-and-tea store, three flights up. It had a fairly large sitting room at the front. He noticed a small book case filled with sets of “The Ivanhoe Novels” and “The Complete Works of Bulwer-Lytton.” Felix told the fat middle-aged woman from the store who showed it to him that he would want the bookcase for books of his own, but not immediately; he remarked that he would probably buy some of her coffee in the morning to make his breakfast on; and assured her that he would not set the hot cup on the bare table-top, which she said was real mahogany and had been left her by a deceased roomer whom she had looked after when he was sick. When she had gone, leaving him the keys, Felix put the Bab Ballads in between the Waverly Novels and the Complete Works of Bulwer-Lytton, and sat down in an old plush-upholstered chair, to make himself at home. In a few minutes there was a knock—it was the fat woman from the store, who had brought him up a pound of her best coffee. “Not that I want to bother you,” she said. “You needn’t be afraid I’ll be knocking at your door and keeping watch of your comings and goings—live and let live, is what I say. But I knew from the way you spoke of coffee that you really liked it, and I just thought I’d bring you some for your breakfast. A man that makes his own coffee knows what coffee is—isn’t that so!” He thanked her, and sat down to look out of the window. The interest of the room itself had been exhausted; it was empty equally of memories and of hopes; it was just so many dismal square feet of space. He had uprooted himself from the place in which he had lived for months that were like years, and years that were like lifetimes; he had lived in that studio—really lived in it; he was living there now, in his thoughts; it would take longer to uproot his mind from that place than it had his body. And yet—he could foresee the time, incredible though it was, when that studio life with Rose-Ann would be only a memory, a part of his past ... like his life with his Iowa sweetheart during their brief idyl, years ago. Yes, the time would come when all this, that was now so warm and near, would be dim and remote; a time when it would no longer hurt him to think about it all....