mething to straighten things out."

No answer. Gabriel turned to the increasing crowd, again.

"Any of you people know what about it?" he asked.

Again no answer, save that one elderly man, standing on the steps beside
the woman, remarked casually:

"I guess she's got fired out of her room. That's all I know."

Gabriel took her by the arm, and drew her up.

"Come, now!" said he, a sterner note in his voice. "This won't do! You
mustn't sit here, and draw a crowd. First thing you know an officer will
be along, and you may get into trouble. Tell me what's wrong, and I
promise to see you through it, as far as I can."

She raised her face, now, and looked at him, a moment. Tear-stained and
dishevelled though she was, and soiled by marks of drink and
debauchery, Gabriel saw she must once have been very beautiful and still
was comely.

"Well," he asked. "Aren't you going to tell me?"

"Tell you?" she repeated. "I--oh, I can't! Not in front of all them
men!"

"Very well!" said he, "walk with me, and give me your story. Will you do
that? At all events, you mustn't stay here, making a disturbance on the
highway. If you knew the police as well as I do, you'd understand that!"

"You're right, friend," said she, hoarsely. "I'm on, now. Come along
then--I'll tell you. It ain't much to tell; but it's a lot to me!"

She glanced at the curious faces of the watchers, then turned and
followed Gabriel, who was already walking up the alley, toward the
brighter lights of Stuart Street. For a moment, one or two of the men
hesitated as though undecided whether or not to follow after; but one
backward look by Gabriel instantly dispelled any desire to intrude. And
as Gabriel and the woman turned into the street, the little knot of
curiosity-seekers dissolved into its component atoms, and vanished.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE TRAP IS SPRUNG.

"It--it's all along o' that there Mr. Micolo!" the woman suddenly
exclaimed, "Him an' his rent-bill! If he'd ha' let me in, there,
tonight, I could ha' got Ed's things an' then started to my sister's,
out to Scottsville. But he wouldn't. He claimed they was
two-seventy-five still owin', and I didn't have but about fifty cents,
so I couldn't pay it. So he wouldn't let me in. Natchally, anybody'd
feel bad, like that, 'specially when a man told 'em he'd hold their
kid's clothes an' things till they paid--which they couldn't!"

"Naturally, of course," answered Gabriel, rather dazed by this sud