ell of the girl's
presence was removed, was one of the first to recover herself. She felt
herself beginning to grow hot with renewed indignation.

"A thief!" she exclaimed looking around the room. "Just an ordinary
self-convicted thief! That's what I call her, and nothing else. And here
we all stood like a lot of ninnies. Why, if I'd done my duty I'd have
locked the door and sent for a policeman."

"Too late now, anyway," Mrs. Lawrence declared. "She's gone for good,
and no mistake. Walked right out of the house. I heard her slam the
front door."

"And a good job, too," Mrs. Fitzgerald armed. "We don't want any of her
sort here--not those who've got things of value about them. I bet she
didn't leave America for nothing."

A little gray-haired lady, who had not as yet spoken, and who very
seldom took part in any discussion at all, looked up from her knitting.
She was desperately poor but she had charitable instincts.

"I wonder what made her want to steal," she remarked quietly.

"A born thief," Mrs. Fitzgerald declared with conviction,--"a real bad
lot. One of your sly-looking ones, I call her."

The little lady sighed.

"When I was better off," she continued, "I used to help at a soup
kitchen in Poplar. I have never forgotten a certain look we used to see
occasionally in the faces of some of the men and women. I found out what
it meant--it was hunger. Once or twice lately I have passed the girl who
has just gone out, upon the stairs, and she almost frightened me. She
had just the same look in her eyes. I noticed it yesterday--it was just
before dinner, too--but she never came down."

"She paid so much for her room and extra for meals," Mrs. Lawrence said
thoughtfully. "She never would have a meal unless she paid for it at the
time. To tell you the truth, I was feeling a bit uneasy about her. She
hasn't been in the dining-room for two days, and from what they tell
me there's no signs of her having eaten anything in her room. As for
getting anything out, why should she? It would be cheaper for her here
than anywhere, if she'd got any money at all."

There was an uncomfortable silence. The little old lady with the
knitting looked down the street into the sultry darkness which had
swallowed up the girl.

"I wonder whether Mr. Tavernake knows anything about her," some one
suggested.

But Tavernake was not in the room.

CHAPTER II. A TETE-A-TETE SUPPER

Tavernake caught her up in New Oxford Street and