l ferret-eyed man was saying, "that
we must make an example of some one. It's serious for us detectives,
too. We'll lose our jobs unless we can stop you boosters."

"Oh--I--I didn't mean to do it. I--I just couldn't help it," sobbed the
girl over and over again.

"Yes," drawled the man, "that's what they all say. But you've been
caught with the goods, this time, young lady."

A woman entered, and the man turned to her quickly.

"Carr--Kitty Carr. Did you find anything under that name?"

"No, sir," replied the woman store detective. "We've looked all through
the records and the photographs. We don't find her. And yet I don't
think it is an alias--at least, if it is, not an alias for any one we
have any record of. I've a good eye for faces, and there isn't one we
have on file as--as good looking," she added, perhaps with a little
touch of wistfulness at her own plainness and this beauty gone wrong.

"This is the woman who lost the ring," put in the other woman
detective, motioning to Constance, who had accompanied her and was
standing, a silent spectator.

The man held up the ring, which Constance had already recognized.

"Is that yours?" he asked.

For a moment, strangely, she hesitated. If it had been any other ring
in the world she felt sure that she would have said no. But, then, she
reflected, there was that pile of stuff. There was no use in concealing
her ownership of the ring. "Yes," she murmured.

"One moment, please," answered the man brusquely. "I must send down for
the salesgirl who waited on you to identify you and your check--a mere
formality, you know, but necessary to keep things straight."

Constance sat down.

"I suppose you don't realize it," explained the man, turning to
Constance, "but the shoplifters of the city get away with a couple of
million dollars' worth of stuff every year. It's the price we have to
pay for displaying our goods. But it's too high. They are the
department store's greatest unsolved problem. Now most of the stores
are working together for their common interests, seeing what they can
do to root them out. We all keep a sort of private rogue's gallery of
them. But we don't seem to have anything on this girl, nor have any of
the other stores who exchange photographs and information with us
anything on her."

"Evidently, then, it is her first offense," put in Constance, wondering
at herself. Strangely, she felt more of sympathy than of anger for the
girl.

"You mean