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realized that perhaps he had not done it. She wanted to cry, too, but she said:
    â€œWhy did you do it?”
    He didn’t answer.
    â€œYou don’t have to be afraid of me. Only tell me why you did it.”
    â€œI didn’t.”
    â€œThen why didn’t you tell me before?—why couldn’t you look me in the eyes?”
    â€œI was sorry—”
    â€œWhy?”
    But then they looked at each other, and she understood, and he understood. Impulsively, she clasped him in her arms, and then when she realized that she was crying, she whispered for him to go. After he went, she sat and cried. It was good for her to cry that way.
    She was sorry that she had told Danny not to meet her outside of school today; meeting her too often made a bad impression on the other teachers. By the time she left the building, the early twilight was beginning to fasten down, and the first heavy flakes of snow were falling. It was cold. Wrapping her coat about her, shivering, she hurried home, wanting nothing now so much as Danny, someone who loved her, who would let her be weak and small, the way she really was.
    Walking along, she whispered: “Danny, Danny, get me out of this—someplace where we can be real and clean and honest. I don’t want our children to suffer like that boy …”

I ’M TIRED now,” the priest thought, “all of a sudden, or because Shutzey said that?” He turned around, and then he went slowly as he walked toward Shutzey’s brownstone house. Two thousand years now since the man other men speak of had walked on the earth, and yet it was no different. Shutzey sold his women in the greatest city in the world.
    He stood in the drifting snow in front of the house, and looked at it. When a priest went in there, he cast caution to the wind. How many priests would, and why did he? In the end, it made no difference, and he was as alone and lost as any single flake of snow. Presently, they would unfrock him; nor would he blame them, knowing the godless world and the godless people in it. Then he laughed; he walked up the steps, his deep laugh booming out over the street.
    Susie, who opened the door for him, was only a child; she clung smiling to his large wet hand, while he shook the snow from his coat.
    â€œCome in, come in,” she laughed. “We’ll have a party now.”
    He went into the blue sitting room, and the girls flocked around him. He was terribly conscious of how large he was and how small they all were. Stretched out in front of him, his big shoes made great wet blots on the carpet; but nobody seemed to mind that, and everybody was pulling chairs close to him. Minnie the storage vault, who was madam, stood in front of him, nodding and smiling. She was always smiling, a round, fat, yellow-haired woman nearing fifty. She went out, and then in a little while she was back with a tray of tea things. She poured tea for him, and they all forced bits of cake on him. He ate and drank and laughed and talked. He felt warm, and he was curiously happy, as if he had been looking for this all, through the evening.
    â€œYou’ll pardon us, father,” Minnie the storage vault said, “we ain’t dressed. You see, we didn’t know you was coming.”
    They plucked at his clothes, sitting close to him. They listened to every word he said. When he left, they trailed after him to the door.
    â€œCome soon—”
    â€œI’ll come.”
    It was only when he was out in the cold of the night again, the snow stinging him in the face, that he was able to think of the house, and consider it for what it was. For some time, he stood there silently, just looking at it. He was standing there like that when O’Lacy came by. O’Lacy had the beat on that block, and he walked quickly because it was cold; but he stopped to have a word with the priest.
    â€œ ’Evening, father.”
    â€œGood evening. It’s rather hard on you, a