“He’s a burglar, that’s what he is!” shouted one. “Bring the police at once.”

Carl Bernicci had private reasons for not desiring a personal encounter with the police, and at those words he hastily made up his mind not to stay and argue his claim to his wife with the guardians of the law. He cast a malignant glance at Fair, who was supported between two motherly looking women, and then made such a supreme effort for liberty that he broke the grasp of his captors and escaped through the door, pursued by a yelling mob, who screamed at the tops of their voices:

“Stop thief! Stop thief!”

Fair, on being left alone with the two elderly women, sighed bitterly, and exclaimed:

“Oh, I am so frightened! I cannot stay in this room alone.”

The women promised that one or the other[Pg 100] would stay with her, and begged her to tell them how it had all happened.

[Pg 100]

“Oh, I hardly know,” she sighed, putting her hand to her brow in agony. “Sadie had a telegram calling her to the bedside of a dying sister in Philadelphia, and she had to go, so I was left alone. I was frightened and lonely at having to spend the night by myself, so I sat down to read a book, and fell asleep. I awoke suddenly, trembling all over, and saw that strange man standing beside me, looking down into my face. I sprang up and screamed, and he cursed me and clapped his hands over my mouth. Then I began to struggle to get free, and you all broke in the door. Oh, how awful it was! I shall never forget it—never!”

The poor girl wept passionately.

The two women comforted her as best they could, and one of them kindly offered to sleep with her. The other one went to get her man, as she called him, to fix the broken lock on the door, which was soon done, after which the disturbed house grew quiet again, the escaped thief not having been apprehended.

“The rascal, what could he expect to stale[Pg 101] among such poor folks as the likes of us?” humorously demanded the Irishman who fixed the lock of the door.

[Pg 101]

Fair shuddered and was silent. Let them think him a common thief if they would. Better so than to know the truth, for then they might turn against her and advise her to live with her husband and not act like a fool, as some of the factory hands had already 

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