one of the firm's pay envelopes.

"What's comin' to you up to date," he blurted out, "and a week's salary
instead of notice."

She was dismissed!

Some girls might have collapsed under this final blow, but not so
Winifred Bartlett. Knowing it was useless to say anything to the clerk,
she spiritedly demanded an interview with the manager. This was refused.
She insisted, and sent Steingall's letter to the inner sanctum, having
concluded that the dismissal was in some way due to her visit to the
detective bureau.

The clerk came back with the note and a message: "The firm desire me to
tell you," he said, "that they quite accept your explanation, but they
have no further need of your services."

Explanation! How could a humble employee explain away the unsavory fact
that the smug respectability of Brown, Son & Brown had been outraged by
the name of the firm appearing in the evening papers as connected, even
in the remotest way, with the sensational crime now engaging the
attention of all New York?

Winifred walked into the street. Something in her face warned even the
most inquisitive of her fellow-workers to leave her alone. Besides, the
poor always evince a lively sympathy with others in misfortune. These
working-class girls were consumed with curiosity, yet they respected
Winifred's feelings, and did not seek to intrude on her very apparent
misery by inquiry or sympathetic condolence. A few among them watched,
and even followed her a little way as she turned the corner into
Fourteenth Street.

"She goes home by the Third Avenue L," said Carlotta. "Sometimes I've
walked with her that far. H'lo! Why's Fowle goin' east in a taxi! He
lives on West Seventeenth. Betcher a dime he's after Winnie."

"Whadda ya mean--after her?" cried another girl.

"Why, didn't you hear how he spoke up for her this mornin' when Ole
Mother Sugg handed her the lemon about bein' late?"

"But he got her fired."

"G'wan!"

"He did, I tell you. I heard him phonin' a newspaper. He made 'em wise
about Winnie's bein' pinched, and then took the paper to the boss. I was
below with a packin' check when he went in, so I saw that with my own
eyes, an' that's just as far as I'd trust Fowle."

The cynic's shrewd surmise was strictly accurate. Fowle had, indeed,
secured Winifred's dismissal. Her beauty and disdain had stirred his
lewd impulses to their depths. His plan now was to intercept her before
she reached her home, and pose as the friend