ance hall, where she was kept on the payroll as an
"entertainer." It was there she had first met Charlie Maxon.

In accordance with her promise to return at a later hour, she left her
small house on the edge of the town shortly after four o'clock and
turned her steps in the direction of the tannery, where she hoped to
catch Simon Varr in his office. Her natural sullenness of expression
was intensified as she walked slowly along her way, for certain friends
of hers had pointed out to her that she was wasting her time. Simon
could do nothing if he would, and would do less than that if he could,
for the lover languishing in jail.

"Then I'll give him a piece of my mind!" she retorted. "I'm not afraid
of old Varr nor any other man."

Her course led her through the heart of the town, and her exact social
status could have been nicely determined by the glances of disfavor she
received from certain thin-nosed, pursed-lipped matrons of Hambleton
whom she passed en route. She could pretend to ignore these glances,
and she did, but they aroused a fierce resentment in her breast and
hardened a resolution already half formed--she was sick of this place,
she was sick of these people, she was sick of her undue prominence in a
small town where every one knew all about every one else, and she
proposed to shake its dust from her high heels at the first opportunity
that offered.

At the tannery, Nelson opened the door when he recognized her through
the peephole and greeted her with a shake of the head.

"No use, Drusilla. He isn't here, and he wouldn't talk to you if he
was. Said to tell you he'd no time to waste on Maxon's women."

"He did, did he!" flared the girl. "Then you can tell him for me that
he's goin' to get into a peck of trouble if he don't look out!"

"I wouldn't say things like that if I was you, Drusilla," admonished
the watchman. He had always liked the girl and regarded her with as
much kindly tolerance as was fitting to a respectable family man.
"There's talk around town already that your Charlie knows more about
the fires we've had than he ought to."

"Sort of thing this town would say! How could he start a fire when he
was locked up in jail? Answer me that."

"He's got friends, ain't he?"

"That's neither here nor there. You can take it from me, he don't know
anything about those fires."

"You may be wrong, Drusilla, a man don't have to tell a woman all he
knows. Anyway, it will be best for