But that mild and meek man had a certain strength of pertinacity. Besides, in this case, he had been having multitudinous troubles of his own, which could be ended only by his employer's placating of the offended kleptomaniac. 

"But about the apology, Mr. Gilder," he reminded, speaking very deferentially, yet with insistence. 

Business instinct triumphed over the magnate's irritation, and his face cleared. 

"Oh, I'll apologize," he said with a wry smile of discomfiture. "I'll make things even up a bit when I get an apology from Gaskell. I shrewdly suspect that that estimable gentleman is going to eat humble pie, of my baking, from his wife's recipe. And his will be an honest apology--which mine won't, not by a damned sight!" With the words, he left the room, in his wake a hugely relieved Smithson. 

Alone in the office, Sarah neglected her work for a few minutes to brood over the startling contrast of events that had just forced itself on her attention. She was not a girl given to the analysis of either persons or things, but in this instance the movement of affairs had come close to her, and she was compelled to some depth of feeling by the two aspects of life on which to-day she looked. In the one case, as she knew it, a girl under the urge of poverty had stolen. That thief had been promptly arrested, finally she had been tried, had been convicted, had been sentenced to three years in prison. In the other case, a woman of wealth had stolen. There had been no punishment. A euphemism of kleptomania had been offered and accepted as sufficient excuse for her crime. A polite lie had been written to her husband, a banker of power in the city. To her, the proprietor of the store was even now apologizing in courteous phrases of regret.... And Mary Turner had been sentenced to three years in prison. Sadie shook her head in dolorous doubt, as she again bent over the keys of her typewriter. Certainly, some happenings in this world of ours did not seem quite fair. 

CHAPTER V. THE VICTIM OF THE LAW. 

It was on this same day that Sarah, on one of her numerous trips through the store in behalf of Gilder, was accosted by a salesgirl, whose name, Helen Morris, she chanced to know. It was in a spot somewhere out of the crowd, so that for the moment the two were practically alone. 

The salesgirl showed signs of embarrassment as she ventured to lay a detaining hand on Sarah's arm, but she maintained her position, despite the 

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