o have seen you to-day," Miss Dean said as they reached the
corner. "I find my sympathies are more and more enlisted through
acquaintance with you girls. Why, I feel that I would like your
employers to spend millions in making your labors a little lighter."
She smiled pleasantly as she spoke and offered Faith her hand.
"Good-by, dear," she said brightly, "there's a good time coming."
Faith watched her as she boarded a car--she was so ambitious, so full of
vigor and so nobly intentioned.
"If she were only an inspector sent from God, now," she whispered, then
a tremor shot over her frame at such a wonderful suggestion.
"Why should I not be an inspector sent from God," she murmured, "to seek
out the dark places and let in the light? If it is only a candle flame
it will help a little."
She turned abstractedly, almost dazed by her thoughts.
The next instant she was brought almost rudely to her senses. Some one
had called her by name. She turned and faced young Denton.
CHAPTER XIV.
MR. FORBES TALKS ON RELIGION.
About two hours before the meeting of Faith and young Denton, Duncan
Forbes returned from burying his son, and sat down disconsolately in the
library of his handsome residence.
Although only the junior partner in the firm of Denton, Day & Co., still
his interest, together with his salary as superintendent of the
establishment, brought him in every year a princely income.
Then there were other investments of a varied nature, all of which had
proven more than ordinarily successful, yet now in his hour of sorrow he
could feel no atom of thankfulness, and every hour of his busy life
seemed to him to have been wasted.
As he sat staring at the fire he could hardly restrain his feelings, for
the words "God will punish you" were ringing in his ears even more
clearly now than when he first heard them.
He tried to go over the incidents of that morning when a poor applicant
in his office had wrought such havoc with his conscience.
He remembered the five hundred dollars of which he had been robbed, and
he also recalled vaguely the conversation he had with a woman inspector
in the store immediately after. Then came the message regarding his
son's condition, then the death chamber, the grave, and now--desolation.
The door opened softly and a servant entered. She bore a tray upon which
were laid a number of letters.
After she had gone Mr. Forbes rose and looked them over. He did so
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