secretary's manner of disapproval. 

"What on earth do you want?" Sarah inquired, snappishly. 

The salesgirl put her question at once. 

"What did they do to Mary Turner?" 

"Oh, that!" the secretary exclaimed, with increased impatience over the delay, for she was very busy, as always. "You will all know soon enough." 

"Tell me now." The voice of the girl was singularly compelling; there was something vividly impressive about her just now, though her pallid, prematurely mature face and the thin figure in the regulation black dress and white apron showed ordinarily only insignificant. "Tell me now," she repeated, with a monotonous emphasis that somehow moved Sarah to obedience against her will, greatly to her own surprise."They sent her to prison for three years," she answered, sharply.

"Three years?" The salesgirl had repeated the words in a tone that was indefinable, yet a tone vehement in its incredulous questioning. "Three years?" she said again, as one refusing to believe.

"Yes," Sarah said, impressed by the girl's earnestness; "three years."

"Good God!" There was no irreverence in the exclamation that broke from the girl's lips. Instead, only a tense horror that touched to the roots of emotion.

Sarah regarded this display of feeling on the part of the young woman before her with an increasing astonishment. It was not in her own nature to be demonstrative, and such strong expression of emotion as this she deemed rather suspicious. She recalled, in addition, the fact that this was not the first time that Helen Morris had shown a particular interest in the fate of Mary Turner. Sarah wondered why.

"Say," she demanded, with the directness habitual to her, "why are you so anxious about it? This is the third time you have asked me about Mary Turner. What's it to you, I'd like to know?"

The salesgirl started violently, and a deep flush drove the accustomed pallor from her cheeks. She was obviously much disturbed by the question.

"What is it to me?" she repeated in an effort to gain time. "Why, nothing--nothing at all!" Her expression of distress 

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