ck of Zerkow's house,
"I wonder what rent Zerkow and Maria pay for this place. I'll bet it's
cheaper than where Mac and I are."

Trina found Maria sitting in front of the kitchen stove, her chin upon
her breast. Trina went up to her. She was dead. And as Trina touched
her shoulder, her head rolled sideways and showed a fearful gash in her
throat under her ear. All the front of her dress was soaked through and
through.

Trina backed sharply away from the body, drawing her hands up to her
very shoulders, her eyes staring and wide, an expression of unutterable
horror twisting her face.

"Oh-h-h!" she exclaimed in a long breath, her voice hardly rising above
a whisper. "Oh-h, isn't that horrible!" Suddenly she turned and fled
through the front part of the house to the street door, that opened upon
the little alley. She looked wildly about her. Directly across the way a
butcher's boy was getting into his two-wheeled cart drawn up in front of
the opposite house, while near by a peddler of wild game was coming down
the street, a brace of ducks in his hand.

"Oh, say--say," gasped Trina, trying to get her voice, "say, come over
here quick."

The butcher's boy paused, one foot on the wheel, and stared. Trina
beckoned frantically.

"Come over here, come over here quick."

The young fellow swung himself into his seat.

"What's the matter with that woman?" he said, half aloud.

"There's a murder been done," cried Trina, swaying in the doorway.

The young fellow drove away, his head over his shoulder, staring at
Trina with eyes that were fixed and absolutely devoid of expression.

"What's the matter with that woman?" he said again to himself as he
turned the corner.

Trina wondered why she didn't scream, how she could keep from it--how,
at such a moment as this, she could remember that it was improper to
make a disturbance and create a scene in the street. The peddler of wild
game was looking at her suspiciously. It would not do to tell him. He
would go away like the butcher's boy.

"Now, wait a minute," Trina said to herself, speaking aloud. She put her
hands to her head. "Now, wait a minute. It won't do for me to lose my
wits now. What must I do?" She looked about her. There was the same
familiar aspect of Polk Street. She could see it at the end of the
alley. The big market opposite the flat, the delivery carts rattling up
and down, the great ladies from the avenue at their morning shopping,
the cable cars trundl