The ride gave her ample time to reflect and she had not gone far before her thoughts were running once more in a straight channel. Her pride grew as the situation became plainer, displacing the first dread and confusion. How could she go to a stranger and inflict her with her troubles? What right had she to ask her assistance or even her interest in this hour of need? Besides all this, the mere confession that she could not find her husband would be humiliating to her and explanations would be sure to put Jud in an unpleasant light. It would mean that she must tell Miss Wood of his failure in everything, a condition which the young woman might politely deplore, but that was all. Her own poor garments now seemed the shabby reflection of Jud's poverty, his degradation, his fall from the high pedestal that had been his by promise. She could not look down into the bright, laughing eyes of her boy and go on to the shameful exposition of his father's misfortune. The red of pride mounted to her brown cheeks and the new fire in her eyes burned bright with the resolution to save him and herself from the humiliation of an appeal to Miss Wood. Past rows of magnificent homes she was driven, but they interested her not at all. Beneath her pride, however, there battled the fast-diminishing power of reason. Try as she would, she could not drive out the stubborn spark which told her that she must call upon some one in her helplessness--but that the "some one" should be a woman was distressing. As she was struggling with pride and reason, the cab turned in and drew up at the curb in front of a handsome house. Her heart gave a great bound of dismay. "This is No. ----, ma'am," said the driver, as he threw open the door. "I--I don't believe I'll go in," she stammered, trembling in every nerve. "Where shall I take you?" he asked wearily. Little he cared for the emotions of his fares. "Are you sure this is the place?" she asked. "Yes, ma'am. Do you want to get out?" Fresh courage inspired her, brought about by the sharp realization that it was the only way to find help, humiliating though the method might be. There was no other way, and his question: "Where shall I take you?" reminded her forcibly that she had no place to go. "Yes," she said, decisively, and with the haste of one who is afraid that hesitation will bring weakness, she stepped to the carriage-block. "Shall I wait, ma'am?" "I don't know how long I'll be here," she said, her ignorance confronted by another puzzle. The driver saw in his mind sufficient cause for her uncertainty, and sagely concluded that she was a poor mother who expected to find a home for her babe with the wealthy people who lived at No. ----.