"'The Temple,'" she murmured again, and her eyes instinctively wandered to the face of her father.
Then she burst into a flood of tears.
For three hours, while the candle burned toward its socket, she meditated upon the contents of that letter.
At last she rose, and took from a closet near the door, a mantilla of black velvet, the only garment which the pawnbroker had spared. It was old and faded; it was the only relic of better days. She resumed her bonnet and wound the mantilla about her shoulders and kissed her Idiot Father on the lips and brow. He had fallen into a dull, dreamless sleep, and looked like a dead man with his fallen lip and half-shut eyes.
"'The Temple!'" she exclaimed and attentively perused the card.
Then extinguishing the candle, she wound a coverlet about her father's form and left him there alone in the garret. She passed the threshold and went down the marble stairs. God pity her.
Yes, God pity her!