atest, don't you?" she
snarled, and then grinned with blatant self-complacency.

"The later the better," said the fellow with a lustful smirk.

Philippina bent over the counter, and whispered: "They're taking their
wedding trip to-day." She laughed in a lewd, imbecile way. The clerk
stared at her with wide-opened eyes and mouth. Two hours later the news
was in the mouth of every hussy in that section of the city.

Gertrude was in bed. The day woman who did the cooking gave Philippina a
plate with Jordan's dinner on it: Meat, vegetables, and a few sour
plums. Philippina ate two of the plums on the way up to his room, and
licked her fingers.

The whole forenoon she spent rummaging around in Eleanore's room; she
looked through the cabinets, the presses, and the pockets of Eleanore's
dresses. As it began to grow dark, Jordan suddenly entered, in hat and
great coat, and looked on in speechless and enraged amazement at the
girl's inexplicable curiosity.

Philippina took the broom from the corner, and began to sweep with all
her might. While sweeping she sang, out of tune, impudently, and
savagely:

"No fire, no coal, so warmly glows
As secret love that no one knows."

Jordan went away without saying anything. He had forgotten to lock his
room. Hardly had Philippina noticed that he had left the key in the
door, when she opened it and went in.

She spied around with cowardly, superstitious eyes. She was afraid of
the old inspector, as she would have been afraid of an invincible
magician. For such cases she had a number of formulas at her tongue's
end. She murmured: "Put earth in, close the lid, hold your thumbs, spit
on your shoe." She spat on her shoe.

She then began to examine the cabinet, for she believed that it
contained all of Jordan's secrets. But she could not open the lock, try
as she might. She then went at the writing desk; she was angry. There
she found, in plain wooden frames, the pictures of Gertrude and
Eleanore. She ran out, got a large needle, came back, and stuck it in
the picture of Eleanore right between the eyes. Then she took Gertrude's
picture, and after she had held it for a while, looking at it with her
gloomy eyes, she noticed that it was spotted with blood. The plaster had
come off her finger, and the finger had started to bleed.

"Come now, Philippina," she said to herself, "go and see how Gertrude is
making out." Entering Gertrude's room, she found her asleep. Creeping up
to he