and walked
quickly down the main street to the brick building on the corner of
Lake Avenue. There she paused to look cautiously up and down the
thoroughfare, and then climbed the brass-bound stairs to Dr. Merkle's
door. The same bushy-headed mulatto girl admitted her, and after the
same interval of waiting in the red plush parlor she was once more
summoned to Dr. Merkle's office. The doctor received her without
surprise, and led her into the inner plush sanctuary.

"I thought you'd be back, but you've come a mite too soon: I told you
to be patient and not fret," she observed, after a pause of penetrating
scrutiny.

Charity drew the money from her breast. "I've come to get my blue
brooch," she said, flushing.

"Your brooch?" Dr. Merkle appeared not to remember. "My, yes--I get so
many things of that kind. Well, my dear, you'll have to wait while I get
it out of the safe. I don't leave valuables like that laying round like
the noospaper."

She disappeared for a moment, and returned with a bit of twisted-up
tissue paper from which she unwrapped the brooch.

Charity, as she looked at it, felt a stir of warmth at her heart. She
held out an eager hand.

"Have you got the change?" she asked a little breathlessly, laying one
of the twenty-dollar bills on the table.

"Change? What'd I want to have change for? I only see two twenties
there," Dr. Merkle answered brightly.

Charity paused, disconcerted. "I thought... you said it was five dollars
a visit...."

"For YOU, as a favour--I did. But how about the responsibility and the
insurance? I don't s'pose you ever thought of that? This pin's worth a
hundred dollars easy. If it had got lost or stole, where'd I been when
you come to claim it?"

Charity remained silent, puzzled and half-convinced by the argument,
and Dr. Merkle promptly followed up her advantage. "I didn't ask you for
your brooch, my dear. I'd a good deal ruther folks paid me my regular
charge than have 'em put me to all this trouble."

She paused, and Charity, seized with a desperate longing to escape, rose
to her feet and held out one of the bills.

"Will you take that?" she asked.

"No, I won't take that, my dear; but I'll take it with its mate, and
hand you over a signed receipt if you don't trust me."

"Oh, but I can't--it's all I've got," Charity exclaimed.

Dr. Merkle looked up at her pleasantly from the plush sofa. "It seems
you got married yesterday, up to the 'Piscopal church; I heard all