A few minutes later the two were on a north-bound Broadway car. Presently Mr. Driscoll blinked his bulging eyes thoughtfully at his watch. "I want to run in and see Keating a minute sometime this afternoon," he remarked. "He's just been doing some great work, Miss Arnold. If we hurry we've got time to crowd it in now." A pudgy forefinger went up into the air. "Oh, conductor--let us off here!" Before Ruth had recovered the power to object they were out of the car and walking westward through a narrow cross street. Her first frantic impulse was to make some hurried excuse and turn back. She could not face him again!--and in his own home!--never! But a sudden fear restrained this impulse: to follow it might reveal to Mr. Driscoll the real state of affairs, or at least rouse his suspicions. She had to go; there was nothing else she could do. And so she walked on beside her employer, all her soul pulsing and throbbing. Soon a change began to work within her--the reassertion of her love. She would have avoided the meeting if she could, but now fate was forcing her into it. She abandoned herself to fate's irresistible arrangement. A wild, excruciating joy began to possess her. She was going to see him again! But in the last minute there came a choking revulsion of feeling. She could not go up--she could not face him. Her mind, as though it had been working all the time beneath her consciousness, presented her instantly with a natural plan of avoiding the meeting. She paused at the stoop of Tom's tenement. "I'll wait here till you come down, or walk about the block," she said. "All right; I'll be gone only a few minutes," returned the unobservant Mr. Driscoll. He mounted the stoop, but drew aside at the door to let a woman with a boy come out, then entered. Ruth's glance rested upon the woman and child, and she instinctively guessed who they were, and her conjecture was instantly made certain knowledge by a voice from a window addressing the woman as Mrs. Keating. She gripped the iron hand-rail and, swaying, stared at Maggie as she stood chatting on the top step. Her fixed eyes photographed the cheap beauty of Maggie's face, and her supreme insight, the gift of the moment, took the likeness of Maggie's soul. She gazed at Maggie with tense, white face, lips parted, hardly breathing, all wildness within, till Maggie started to turn from her neighbor. Then she herself turned about and walked dizzily away. In the meantime Mr. Driscoll had gained Tom's flat and was knocking on the door. When Maggie had gone out--the silent accusation of Tom's presence irked her so, she was glad to escape it for an hour or two--she had left the door unlocked that Tom might have no trouble in admitting possible callers. Mr. Driscoll entered in response to Tom's "Come in," and crossed heavily into the sitting-room. "Hello there! How are you?" he called out, taking Tom's hand in a hearty grasp. "Why, Mr. Driscoll!" Tom exclaimed, with a smile of pleasure.