from
her, and told her you'd never let it out of your hands till you brought
it back safe to her. That it was for the good of us all you'd be using
it."

The telephone was in use when Mary entered the grocery, and while she
waited for her turn, she glanced through the paper that Mrs. Donegan had
thrust into her hands. She had already seen the marked account of the
funeral on one of her visits to old Mrs. Reilly, for she had been asked
on that trying occasion to read it aloud; but she had not read until now
the article on the opposite page, which gave a graphic description of
the tenement in which the accident occurred, and which indignantly
called attention to the criminal negligence which had caused the death
of a tenant. No names were given, but Mary knew that Burke Stoner owned
the premises then, and that in the ten years he had collected nearly
fifty thousand dollars in rents from the inmates of Diamond Row. She had
been busy collecting statistics as well as other kinds of information
since her first interview with his agent, and the recording angel was
not the only one who had a long list of black figures set down against
his name. Mary kept hers on a page by itself in a neat little memorandum
book, biding her time to sound the promised trumpet before him.

It was a very grim and determined Mary who came out of the corner
grocery five minutes later. She had been able to locate the nurse much
sooner than she expected to, and was on her way back to Dena's room to
report that help was coming. And when a little later the honk of Mrs.
Blythe's machine sounded at the curbstone in front of Diamond Row, she
climbed into her seat beside her friend without a glance at the new gown
and the picture hat she was wearing for the first time. That omission in
itself showed Mrs. Blythe that something was wrong, for usually Mary was
keenly interested in her appearance, and never failed to express her
admiration of anything which she especially admired.

"What's gone wrong?" asked Mrs. Blythe, as they whirled around a corner
and turned into a pleasanter part of the town.

For once Mary waited before speaking, taking a deep breath and pressing
her lips tightly together. Then she answered in a tense way:

"I feel as if I'd witnessed a murder! I can't get poor Dena's moans out
of my ears, nor the sight of that broken stairway with the water
underneath out of my mind!" Then reminded by the perplexed expression of
Mrs. Blythe's face