s rapid
pacing of the room.

"What's the use?" Gilder stormed. A latent hardness revealed itself at
the prospect of such a visitation. And along with this hardness came
another singular revelation of the nature of the man. For there was
consternation in his voice, as he continued in vehement expostulation
against the idea. If there was harshness in his attitude there was,
too, a fugitive suggestion of tenderness alarmed over the prospect of
undergoing such an interview with a woman.

"I can't have her crying all over the office and begging for mercy," he
protested, truculently. But a note of fear lay under the petulance.

Demarest's answer was given with assurance,

"You are mistaken about that. The girl doesn't beg for mercy. In fact,
that's the whole point of the matter. She demands justice--strange as
that may seem, in a court of law!--and nothing else. The truth is, she's
a very unusual girl, a long way beyond the ordinary sales-girl, both in
brains and in education."

"The less reason, then, for her being a thief," Gilder grumbled in his
heaviest voice.

"And perhaps the less reason for believing her to be a thief," the
lawyer retorted, suavely. He paused for a moment, then went on. There
was a tone of sincere determination in his voice. "Just before the judge
imposed sentence, he asked her if she had anything to say. You know,
it's just a usual form--a thing that rarely means much of anything.
But this case was different, let me tell you. She surprised us all by
answering at once that she had. It's really a pity, Gilder, that you
didn't wait. Why, that poor girl made a--damn--fine speech!"

The lawyer's forensic aspirations showed in his honest appreciation of
the effectiveness of such oratory from the heart as he had heard in the
courtroom that day.

"Pooh! pooh!" came the querulous objection. "She seems to have
hypnotized you." Then, as a new thought came to the magnate, he spoke
with a trace of anxiety. There were always the reporters, looking for
space to fill with foolish vaporings.

"Did she say anything against me, or the store?"

"Not a word," the lawyer replied, gravely. His smile of appreciation was
discreetly secret. "She merely told us how her father died when she was
sixteen years old. She was compelled after that to earn her own living.
Then she told how she had worked for you for five years steadily,
without there ever being a single thing against her. She said, too, that
she had never