e more the "agent's" letter, and was again
conscious of an extremely vague feeling of something queer in it when
she reflected on the lateness of the hour of the rendezvous--eight in
the evening. She decided to write, explaining her change of purpose, and
declining the interview with this nebulous "client." She did not write
at once. She thought that she would wait, and see first the result of
the day's search for other employment.

Soon after breakfast she went out, heading for Brown's, her old
employers in Greenwich Village, who had turned her away after the yacht
affair and the arrest of her aunt.

As she waited at the crossing where the cars pass, her eyes rested on a
man--a clergyman, apparently--standing on the opposite pavement. He was
not at the moment looking that way, and she took little notice of him,
though her subconsciousness may have recognized something familiar in
the lines of his body.

It was Fowle in a saintly garb, Fowle in a shovel hat, Fowle interested
in the comings and goings of Winifred. Fowle, moreover, in those days,
floated on the high tide of ease, and had plenty of money in his pocket.
He not only looked, but felt like a person of importance, and when
Winifred entered a street-car, Fowle followed in a taxi.

There was a new foreman at Brown's now, and he received the girl kindly.
She laid her case before him. She had been employed there and had given
satisfaction. Then, all at once, an event with which she had nothing
more to do than people in China, had caused her to be dismissed. Would
not the firm, now that the whole business had blown over, reinstate her?

The man heard her attentively through and said:

"Hold on. I'll have a talk with the boss." He left her, and was gone ten
minutes. Then he returned, with a shaking head. "No, Brown's never take
any one back," said he; "but here's a list of bookbinding firms which
he's written out for you, and he says he'll give you a recommendation if
any of 'em give you a job."

With this list Winifred went out, and, determined to lose no time,
started on the round, taking the nearest first, one in Nineteenth
Street. She walked that way, and slowly behind her followed a clergyman.
The firm in Nineteenth Street wanted no new hand. Winifred got into a
Twenty-third Street cross-town car. After her sped a taxi.

And now, when she stopped at the third bookbinder's, Fowle knew her
motive. She was seeking work at the old trade. He was puzzled, know