she went out quite bare and simply, with all her lovely
jewels in the leather case on the upper shelf of the bedroom closet, as
she had explained to Wheeler in the note.

That afternoon she presented herself to Lichtig. He was again as you
would expect--round-bellied, and wore his cigar up obliquely from one
corner of his mouth. He engaged her immediately at an increase of five
dollars a week, and as she was leaving with the promise to report at
eight-thirty the next morning he pinched her cheek, she pulling away
angrily.

"None of that!"

"My mistake," he apologized.

She considered it promiscuous and cheap, and you know her aversion for
cheapness.

Then she obtained, after a few forays in and out of brownstone houses
in West Forty-fifth Street, one of those hall bedrooms so familiar to
human-interest stories--the iron-bed, washstand, and slop-jar kind.
There was a five-dollar advance required. That left her twenty dollars.

She shopped a bit then in an Eighth Avenue department store, and, with
the day well on the wane, took a street car up to the Ivy Funeral Rooms.
This time she entered, but the proprietor did not recognize her until
she explained. As you know, she looked smaller and younger, and there
was no tan car at the curb.

"I want to pay this off by the week," she said, handing him out
the statement and a much-folded ten-dollar bill. He looked at her,
surprised. "Yes," she said, her teeth biting off the word in a click.

"Certainly," he replied, handing her out a receipt for the ten.

"I will pay five dollars a week hereafter."

"That will stretch it out to twenty-eight weeks," he said, still
doubtfully.

"I can't help it; I must."

"Certainly," he said, "that will be all right," but looked puzzled.

That night she slept in the hall bedroom in the Eighth Avenue,
machine-stitched nightgown. She dropped off about midnight, praying not
to awaken at four. But she did--with a slight start, sitting up in bed,
her eyes where the wall and ceiling joined.

Gerald's face was there, and his blue eyes were open, but the steel
points were gone. They were smiling eyes. They seemed to embrace her, to
wash her in their fluid.

All her fear and the pain in her head were gone. She sat up, looking at
him, the tears streaming down over her smile and her lips moving.

Then, sighing out like a child, she lay back on the pillow, turned over,
and went to sleep.

* * * * *

And th