As soon as the day's work was over, however, and he stepped into his cab, he dismissed it entirely from his thoughts.

It was curious how, notwithstanding this new seriousness which had come into his life, notwithstanding that sensation of walking all the time on the brink of a precipice, he set his face homeward and looked forward to his evening, with a pleasure which he had not felt for many months.

The whirl of the day faded easily from his mind.

He lived no more in an atmosphere of wild excitement, of changing prices, of feverish anxiety.

How empty his life must have unconsciously grown that he could find so much pleasure in being kind to a pretty child! It was hard to think of her otherwise--impossible.