Martin was unable to resist the fascination of coins so badly needed. The other street-cleaners were waiting down stairs. After the robust woman had communicated the whole affair to them through the window they took Martin into their ranks without any waste of words and marched on before he had time to realize where he was going. Pressing his hat over his eyes he hobbled along with them as well as he could, while actual tears rolled down into his grey beard.
But the thought of coming home at night with the money he had earned soothed him to some extent. His family need never know, and he was not acquainted with another soul in the great city.
How sorely he was hurt by the knowledge that his former employer's wife had seen him at this undignified occupation is already known to the reader.
V.
On the evening in question Lucy was unusually quiet and absorbed. She had scarcely seemed to understand the loving words whispered in her ear by her lover who sat beside her; she was obliged to force herself, even, to return monosyllabic answers to his questions. Her thoughts were elsewhere. She had only been back from Palm Beach a little while, and had heard nothing from the family in which she was so much interested. But her busy imagination depicted the well-known room which contained the portfolio which had played such a part in her life; and Eugene's fair, curly head, and glowing, longing glances. Then once more, she saw his father with the broom—the almsgiving scene. Her thoughts were incessantly occupied with the son of a street-cleaner!
A burning flush of shame overspread her pale face, which George Elmore accepted as the answer to his tenderly whispered entreaties that she should become his wife at once, and kissed her hand repeatedly.
The son of a street-cleaner to thrust himself between her and George! Being what she was—a proud woman and an heiress, she was startled.
"How could I so far forget myself!" she reflected. "Heavens! if George were to suspect!"