he pencil aside in physical expression of his
displeasure. "Why did you send that message, if you have nothing to
say?" he demanded, with increasing choler.

But now the girl had regained her former poise. She stood a little
drooping and shaken, where for a moment she had been erect and tensed.
There was a vast weariness in her words as she answered.

"I have something to tell you, Mr. Gilder," she said, quietly. "Only,
I--I sort of lost my grip on the way here, with this man by my side."

"Most of 'em do, the first time," the officer commented, with a certain
grim appreciation.

"Well?" Gilder insisted querulously, as the girl hesitated.

At once, Mary went on speaking, and now a little increase of vigor
trembled in her tones.

"When you sit in a cell for three months waiting for your trial, as I
did, you think a lot. And, so, I got the idea that if I could talk to
you, I might be able to make you understand what's really wrong. And if
I could do that, and so help out the other girls, what has happened to
me would not, after all, be quite so awful--so useless, somehow." Her
voice lowered to a quick pleading, and she bent toward the man at the
desk. "Mr. Gilder," she questioned, "do you really want to stop the
girls from stealing?"

"Most certainly I do," came the forcible reply.

The girl spoke with a great earnestness, deliberately.

"Then, give them a fair chance."

The magnate stared in sincere astonishment over this absurd, this futile
suggestion for his guidance.

"What do you mean?" he vociferated, with rising indignation. There was
an added hostility in his demeanor, for it seemed to him that this thief
of his goods whom he had brought to justice was daring to trifle with
him. He grew wrathful over the suspicion, but a secret curiosity still
held his temper within bounds "What do you mean?" he repeated; and now
the full force of his strong voice set the room trembling.

The tones of the girl came softly musical, made more delicately resonant
to the ear by contrast with the man's roaring.

"Why," she said, very gently, "I mean just this: Give them a living
chance to be honest."

"A living chance!" The two words were exploded with dynamic violence.
The preposterousness of the advice fired Gilder with resentment so
pervasive that through many seconds he found himself unable to express
the rage that flamed within him.

The girl showed herself undismayed by his anger.

"Yes," she went on, quietly;