Despite the divergent lines of their lives a great tie of affection united them. They met only at long intervals--when he came into town for a night--and all correspondence between them was on his side as she never knew where he was. Even had he not lavished a rough tenderness upon her, the memory of pangs mutually suffered, of hardships mutually endured, would have bound her to him. He was the only person who had passed, closely allied, an intimate figure, through the full extent of her life. Though he was so much to her she never spoke of him, except to Charlie Crowder, her one friend, of whose discretion she was sure. This reticence was partly due to tenderness--the past and his place in it had their sacredness--and partly to the miner's own wish. As her star had risen it was he who had suggested the wisdom of "keeping him out." He thought it bad business; an opera singer's father--especially a father with a pick and a pan--had no advertising value and might be detrimental. When he put it that way she saw the sense of it--Pancha was always quick to see things from a business angle--and fell in with his wish. She was not unwilling to. It wasn't that she was ashamed of him, she cared too little for the world to be ashamed of anything, but she did not want him made a joke of in the wings or written up satirically in the theatrical column. When small road managers who had known her at the start came into town and asked where "Pancha's Pa" was, nobody knew anything about such a person, and they guessed "the old guy must have died." Since she had lived at the Vallejo Hotel he had been there five times, always after dark. She had told Cushing, the night clerk, that Mr. Michaels was a relation of hers from the country and if he came when she was out to let him into her rooms. As she drew up at the desk and asked for her key--it hung on a rack studded with little hooks--Cushing, drowsing with his feet on a chair, rose wearily, growling through a yawn: "Mr. Michaels has came. He's been here about an hour. I done what you said and let him in." She smothered an expression of joy, snatched the key and ran upstairs. Lovely--just as she was thinking of him! She let herself in anticipating a glad welcome and saw that he was lying on the sofa asleep. The only light in the room was from the extension lamp on the table and by its shaded glow she stood looking at him. He was sleeping heavily, still wrapped in the old overcoat she knew so well, his coarse hands, with blackened finger nails, clasped on his breast. His face, relaxed in rest, looked worn, the forehead seamed with its one deep line, the eyes sunk below the grizzled brows. It came upon her with a shock that he seemed old and tired, and it hurt her. In a childish desire to bring him back to himself, have him assume his familiar aspect and stop her pain, she shook him by the shoulder, crying: "Pa, Pa, wake up."