A door slammed, rattling the thin partition between the two rooms, and heavy footsteps dragged in the hall and on the stairway. Sleep refused to come back to Lane. As he lay there he was surprised at the many sounds he heard. The ramshackle old structure, which he had supposed almost vacant, was busy with life. Stealthy footfalls in the hallways passed and repassed; a piano drummed somewhere; a man's loud voice rang out, and a woman's laugh faint, hollow and far away, like the ghost of laughter, returned in echo. The musical clinking of glasses, the ring of a cash register, the rattling click of pool balls, came up from below. Presently Lane remembered the nature of the place. It was a house of night. In daylight it was silent; its inmates were asleep. But as the darkness unfolded a cloak over it, all the hidden springs of its obscure humanity began to flow. Lying there with the woman's appeal haunting him and all those sounds in his ears he thought of their meaning. The drunkard with his lust for money; his moaning victim; the discordant piano; the man with the vacant laugh; the lost hope and youth in the woman's that echoed it; the stealing, slipping feet of those who must tread softly--all conveyed to Lane that he had awakened in another world, a world which shunned sunlight. Toward morning he dozed off into a fitful sleep which lasted until ten o'clock when he arose and dressed. As he was about to go out a knock on the door of the room next to his recalled the incident of the night. He listened. Another knock followed, somewhat louder, but no response came from within. "Say, you in there," cried a voice Lane recognized as the landlady's. She rattled the door-knob. A girl's voice answered weakly: "Come in." Lane heard the door open. "I wants my room rent. I can't get a dollar out of your drunken father. Will you pay? It's four weeks overdue." "I have no money." "Then get out an' leave me the room." The landlady spoke angrily. "I'm ill. I can't get up." The answer was faint. Lane opened his door quickly, and confronted the broad person of the landlady. "How much does the woman owe?" he asked, quietly. "Ah-huh!" the exclamation was trenchant with meaning. "Twenty dollars, if it's anything to you." "I'll pay it. I think I heard the woman say she was ill." "She says she is." "May I be of any assistance?" "Ask her." Lane glanced into the little room, a counterpart of his. But it was so dark he could see nothing distinctly. "May I come in? Let me raise the blind. There, the sun is fine this morning. Now, may I not---" He looked down at a curly head and a sweet pretty face that he knew. "I know you," he said, groping among past associations. "I am Rose Clymer," she whispered, and a momentary color came into her wan cheeks. "Rose Clymer! Bessy Bell's friend!" "Yes, Mr. Lane. I'm not so surprised as you. I recognized you last night." "Then it was you who passed me in the hall?" "Yes."