nothing about them. It's only what I have read."

"And I'm not saying that you have not read the truth." The man looked
nervously round him as he spoke, peering into the shadows as if he
feared to see some lurking danger. "If killing is murder, then God knows
there is murder and to spare. But don't you dare to breathe the name
of Jack McGinty in connection with it, stranger; for every whisper
goes back to him, and he is not one that is likely to let it pass. Now,
that's the house you're after, that one standing back from the street.
You'll find old Jacob Shafter that runs it as honest a man as lives in
this township."

"I thank you," said McMurdo, and shaking hands with his new acquaintance
he plodded, gripsack in hand, up the path which led to the dwelling
house, at the door of which he gave a resounding knock.

It was opened at once by someone very different from what he had
expected. It was a woman, young and singularly beautiful. She was of the
German type, blonde and fair-haired, with the piquant contrast of a
pair of beautiful dark eyes with which she surveyed the stranger with
surprise and a pleasing embarrassment which brought a wave of colour
over her pale face. Framed in the bright light of the open doorway, it
seemed to McMurdo that he had never seen a more beautiful picture;
the more attractive for its contrast with the sordid and gloomy
surroundings. A lovely violet growing upon one of those black slag-heaps
of the mines would not have seemed more surprising. So entranced was
he that he stood staring without a word, and it was she who broke the
silence.

"I thought it was father," said she with a pleasing little touch of a
German accent. "Did you come to see him? He is down town. I expect him
back every minute."

McMurdo continued to gaze at her in open admiration until her eyes
dropped in confusion before this masterful visitor.

"No, miss," he said at last, "I'm in no hurry to see him. But your house
was recommended to me for board. I thought it might suit me--and now I
know it will."

"You are quick to make up your mind," said she with a smile.

"Anyone but a blind man could do as much," the other answered.

She laughed at the compliment. "Come right in, sir," she said. "I'm Miss
Ettie Shafter, Mr. Shafter's daughter. My mother's dead, and I run the
house. You can sit down by the stove in the front room until father
comes along--Ah, here he is! So you can fix things with him right away."

A h