take
all I earn, and I get--the devil."

Her voice rose to a terrified squeal. Behind her she heard the slovenly
servant creaking down the stairs. As Herman moved toward her she
screamed.

"Katie!" she called. "Quick. Help!"

But Herman had caught her by the shoulder and was dragging her toward a
corner, where there hung a leather strap.

Katie, peering round the door of the enclosed staircase, saw him raise
the strap, and Anna's white face upraised piteously.

"For God's sake, father."

The strap descended. Even after Katie had rushed up the stairs and
locked herself in the room, she could hear, above Anna's cries, the thud
of the strap, relentless, terrible, lusty with cruelty.

Herman went to church the next morning. Lying in her bed, too sore and
bruised to move, Anna heard him carefully polishing his boots on the
side porch, heard him throw away the water after he had shaved, heard at
last the slam of the gate as he started, upright in his Sunday clothes,
for church.

Only when he had reached the end of the street, and Katie could see him
picking his way down the blackened hill, did she venture up with a cup
of coffee. Anna had to unlock her door to admit her, to remove a further
barricade of chairs. When Katie saw her she almost dropped the cup.

"You poor little rat," she said compassionately. "Gee! He was crazy. I
never saw such a face. Gee!"

Anna said nothing. She dropped on the side of the bed and took the
coffee, drinking gingerly through a lip swollen and cut.

"I'm going to leave," Katie went on. "It'll be my time next. If he tries
any tricks on me I'll have the law on him. He's a beast; that's what he
is."

"Katie," Anna said, "if I leave can you get my clothes to me? I'll carry
all I can."

"He'd take the strap to me."

"Well, if you're leaving anyhow, you can put some of my things in your
trunk."

"Good and right you are to get out," Katie agreed. "Sure I'll do it.
Where do you think you'll go?"

"I thought last night I'd jump in the river. I've changed my mind,
though. I'll pay him back, and not the way he expects."

"Give it to him good," assented Katie. "I'd have liked to slip some of
that Paris green of his in his coffee this morning. And now he's off for
church, the old hypocrite!"

To Katie's curious inquiries as to the cause of the beating Anna was now
too committal.

"I held out some money on him," was all she said.

Katie regarded her with a mixture of awe and admira