right. "Thank you, Mr. Kling," he said, yielding his
place to his employer, "and if you will excuse me, madam," and he bowed
to his customer, "I will see what it is all about--and now, Mistress
Kitty, what can I do for you?"

Kitty backed away toward the door, so that a huge wardrobe shielded her
from Otto and his customer.

"Come near, Mr. O'Day," she whispered, all her forced humor gone. "I've
got the woman who dropped the sleeve-buttons."

Felix swayed unsteadily, and gripped a chair-back for support.

"You've got--the woman--What do you mean?" he said at last.

"Mike saw her at the police-station. They've put her in a cell."

"Arrested?"

"Yes, for stealin'."

Involuntarily his fingers brushed his throat as if he were choking, but
no words came. He had been all his life accustomed to surprises, some
of them appalling, but against this, for the instant, he had no power to
stand.

Kitty stood watching the quivering of his lips and the drawn, strained
muscles about his jaw and neck as his will power whipped them back
to their normal shape. She was convinced now of the truth of her
suspicions--the woman was not only interwoven with his past, but was
closely identified with his present anguish.

She drew closer, her voice rising. "Ye'll go with me, won't ye,
Mr. Felix?" she went on, hiding under an assumed indifference all
recognition of his struggle. "Father Cruse told me if I ever come across
her again, and there wasn't time to get hold of him, to let ye know."

"I will go anywhere, where Father Cruse thinks I should, Mrs.
Cleary--especially in cases of this kind, where I may be of use." The
words had come from between partly closed lips; his hands were still
tightly clinched. "And you say she was arrested--for stealing?"

"Yes, shopliftin', they call it. Poor creatures, they get that miserable
and trodden on they don't know right from wrong!"

Then, as if to give him time in which to recover himself fully, she went
on, speaking rapidly: "And, after all, it may only be a put-up job or
a mistake. Half the women they pinch in them big stores ain't reg'lar
thieves. They get tempted, or they can't find anybody to tell 'em the
price o' things, especially these holiday times, and they carry 'em
round from counter to counter, and along comes a store detective and
nabs 'em with the goods on 'em. They did that to me once, over at
Cryder's, and I told him I'd knock him down if he put his hand on me,
and somebody