CHAPTER V. THE VICTIM OF THE LAW.
It was on this same day that Sarah, on one of her numerous trips throughthe 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 ofthe crowd, so that for the moment the two were practically alone.The salesgirl showed signs of embarrassment as she ventured to lay adetaining hand on Sarah's arm, but she maintained her position, despitethe 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 overthe delay, for she was very busy, as always. "You will all know soonenough."
"Tell me now." The voice of the girl was singularly compelling; therewas something vividly impressive about her just now, though her pallid,prematurely mature face and the thin figure in the regulation blackdress and white apron showed ordinarily only insignificant. "Tell menow," she repeated, with a monotonous emphasis that somehow moved Sarahto 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 wasindefinable, yet a tone vehement in its incredulous questioning. "Threeyears?" 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 fromthe girl's lips. Instead, only a tense horror that touched to the rootsof emotion.
Sarah regarded this display of feeling on the part of the young womanbefore her with an increasing astonishment. It was not in her own natureto be demonstrative, and such strong expression of emotion as this shedeemed rather suspicious. She recalled, in addition, the fact that hiswas not the first time that Helen Morris had shown a particular interestin the fate of Mary Turner. Sarah wondered why.
"Say," she demanded, with the directness habitual to her, "why are youso anxious about it? This is the third time you have asked me about MaryTurner. What's it to you, I'd like to know?"
The salesgirl started violently, and a deep flush drove the accustomedpallor from her cheeks. She was obviously much disturbed by thequestion.
"What is it to me?" she repeated in an effort to gain time. "Why,nothing--nothing at all!" Her expression of distress lightened a littleas she hit on an excuse that might serve to justify her interest."Nothing at all, only--she's a friend of mine, a great friend of mine.Oh, yes!" Then, in an instant, the look of relief vanished, as onceagain the terrible reality hammered on her consciousness, and anoverwhelming dejection showed in the dull eyes and in the droopingcurves of the white lips. There was a monotone of desolation as shewent on speaking in a whisper meant for the ears of no other. "It'sawful--three years! Oh, I didn't understand! It's awful!--awful!" Withthe final word, she hurried off, her head bowed. She was still murmuringbrokenly, incoherently. Her whole attitude was of wondering grief.
Sarah stared after the girl in complete mystification. She could not atfirst guess any possible cause for an emotion so poignant. Presently,however, her shrewd, though very prosaic, commonsense suggested a simpleexplanation of the girl's extraordinary distress.
"I'll bet that girl has been tempted to steal. But she didn't, becauseshe was afraid." With this satisfactory conclusion of her wonderment,the secretary hurried on her way, quite content. It never occurred toher that the girl might have been tempted to steal--and had not resistedthe temptation.
It was on account of this brief conversation with the salesgirl thatSarah was thinking intently of Mary Turner, after her return to theoffice, from which Gilder himself happened to be absent for the moment.As the secretary glanced up at the opening of the door, she did not atfirst recognize the figure outlined there. She remembered Mary Turneras a tall, slender girl, who showed an underlying vitality in everymovement, a girl with a face of regular features, in which was acomplexion of blended milk and roses, with a radiant joy of life shiningthrough all her arduous and vulgar conditions. Instead of this, now, shesaw a frail form that stood swaying in the opening of the doorway, thatbent in a sinister fashion which told of bodily impotence, while theface was quite bloodless. And, too, there was over all else a pall ofhelplessness--helplessness that had endured much, and must still endureinfinitely more.
As a reinforcement of the dread import of that figure of wo, a man stoodbeside it, and one of his hands was clasped around the girl's wrist, aman who wore his derby hat somewhat far back on his bullet-shaped head,whose feet were conspicuous in shoes with very heavy soles and verysquare toes.
It was the man who now took charge of the situation. Cassidy, fromHeadquarters, spoke in a rough, indifferent voice, well suited to hisappearance of stolid strength.
"The District Attorney told me to bring this girl here on my way to theGrand Central Station with her."
Sarah got to her feet mechanically. Somehow, from the raucous notes ofthe policeman's voice, she understood in a flash of illumination thatthe pitiful figure there in the doorway was that of Mary Turner, whomshe had remembered so different, so frightfully different. She spokewith a miserable effort toward her usual liveliness.
"Mr. Gilder will be right back. Come in and wait." She wished to saysomething more, something of welcome or of mourning, to the girl there,but she found herself incapable of a single word for the moment, andcould only stand dumb while the man stepped forward, with his chargefollowing helplessly in his clutch.
The two went forward very slowly, the officer, carelessly conscious ofhis duty, walking with awkward steps to suit the feeble movements of thegirl, the girl letting herself be dragged onward, aware of the futilityof any resistance to the inexorable power that now had her in itsgrip, of which the man was the present agent. As the pair came thusfalteringly into the center of the room, Sarah at last found her voicefor an expression of sympathy.
"I'm sorry, Mary," she said, hesitatingly. "I'm terribly sorry, terriblysorry!"
The girl, who had halted when the officer halted, as a matter of course,did not look up. She stood still, swaying a little as if from weakness.Her voice was lifeless.
"Are you?" she said. "I did not know. Nobody has been near me the wholetime I have been in the Tombs." There was infinite pathos in the tonesas she repeated the words so fraught with dreadfulness. "Nobody has beennear me!"
The secretary felt a sudden glow of shame. She realized the justice ofthat unconscious accusation, for, till to-day, she had had no thought ofthe suffering girl there in the prison. To assuage remorse, she soughtto give evidence as to a prevalent sympathy.
"Why," she exclaimed, "there was Helen Morris to-day! She has beenasking about you again and again. She's all broken up over yourtrouble."
But the effort on the secretary's part was wholly without success.
"Who is Helen Morris?" the lifeless voice demanded. There was nointerest in the question.
Sarah experienced a momentary astonishment, for she was stillremembering the feverish excitement displayed by the salesgirl, who haddeclared herself to be a most intimate friend of the convict. But themystery was to remain unsolved, since Gilder now entered the office. Hewalked with the quick, bustling activity that was ordinarily expressedin his every movement. He paused for an instant, as he beheld thetwo visitors in the center of the room, then he spoke curtly to thesecretary, while crossing to his chair at the desk.
"You may go, Sarah. I will ring when I wish you again."
There followed an interval of silence, while the secretary was leavingthe office and the girl with her warder stood waiting on his pleasure.Gilder cleared his throat twice in an embarrassment foreign to him,before finally he spoke to the girl. At last, the proprietor ofthe store expressed himself in a voice of genuine sympathy, for thespectacle of wo presented there before his very eyes moved him to a realdistress, since it w
as indeed actual, something that did not depend onan appreciation to be developed out of imagination.
"My girl," Gilder said gently--his hard voice was softened by an honestregret--"my girl, I am sorry about this."
"You should be!" came the instant answer. Yet, the words were utteredwith a total lack of emotion. It seemed from their intonation thatthe speaker voiced merely a statement concerning a recondite matter oftruth, with which sentiment had nothing whatever to do. But the effecton the employer was unfortunate. It aroused at once his antagonismagainst the girl. His instinct of sympathy with which he had greetedher at the outset was repelled, and made of no avail. Worse, it wastransformed into an emotion hostile to the one who thus offended him byrejection of the well-meant kindliness of his address
"Come, come!" he exclaimed, testily. "That's no tone to take with me."
"Why? What sort of tone do you expect me to take?" was the retort inthe listless voice. Yet, now, in the dullness ran a faint suggestion ofsomething sinister.
"I expected a decent amount of humility from one in your position," wasthe tart rejoinder of the magnate.
Life quickened swiftly in the drooping form of the girl. Her musclestensed. She stood suddenly erect, in the vigor of her youth again. Herface lost in the same second its bleakness of pallor. The eyes openedwidely, with startling abruptness, and looked straight into those of theman who had employed her.
"Would you be humble," she demanded, and now her voice was become softlymusical, yet forbidding, too, with a note of passion, "would you behumble if you were going to prison for three years--for something youdidn't do?"
There was anguish in the cry torn from the girl's throat in the suddenaccess of despair. The words thrilled Gilder beyond anything that hehad supposed possible in such case. He found himself in this emergencytotally at a loss, and moved in his chair doubtfully, wishing to saysomething, and quite unable. He was still seeking some question, somecriticism, some rebuke, when he was unfeignedly relieved to hear thepoliceman's harsh voice.
"Don't mind her, sir," Cassidy said. He meant to make his manner veryreassuring. "They all say that. They are innocent, of course! Yep--theyall say it. It don't do 'em any good, but just the same they all swearthey're innocent. They keep it up to the very last, no matter how rightthey've been got."
The voice of the girl rang clear. There was a note of insistencethat carried a curious dignity of its own. The very simplicity of herstatement might have had a power to convince one who listened withoutprejudice, although the words themselves were of the trite sort that anyprotesting criminal might utter.
"I tell you, I didn't do it!"
Gilder himself felt the surge of emotion that swung through thesemoments, but he would not yield to it. With his lack of imagination,he could not interpret what this time must mean to the girl before him.Rather, he merely deemed it his duty to carry through this unfortunateaffair with a scrupulous attention to detail, in the fashion that hadalways been characteristic of him during the years in which he hadsteadily mounted from the bottom to the top.
"What's the use of all this pretense?" he demanded, sharply. "You weregiven a fair trial, and there's an end of it."
The girl, standing there so feebly, seeming indeed to cling for supportto the man who always held her thus closely by the wrist, spoke againwith an astonishing clearness, even with a sort of vivacity, as if sheexplained easily something otherwise in doubt.
"Oh, no, I wasn't!" she contradicted bluntly, with a singular confidenceof assertion. "Why, if the trial had been fair, I shouldn't be here."
The harsh voice of Cassidy again broke in on the passion of the girlwith a professional sneer.
"That's another thing they all say."
But the girl went on speaking fiercely, impervious to the man's coarsesarcasm, her eyes, which had deepened almost to purple, still fixedpiercingly on Gilder, who, for some reason wholly inexplicable to him,felt himself strangely disturbed under that regard.
"Do you call it fair when the lawyer I had was only a boy--one whom thecourt told me to take, a boy trying his first case--my case, thatmeant the ruin of my life? My lawyer! Why, he was just gettingexperience--getting it at my expense!" The girl paused as if exhaustedby the vehemence of her emotion, and at last the sparkling eyes droopedand the heavy lids closed over them. She swayed a little, so that theofficer tightened his clasp on her wrist.
There followed a few seconds of silence. Then Gilder made an effort toshake off the feeling that had so possessed him, and to a certain degreehe succeeded.
"The jury found you guilty," he asserted, with an attempt to make hisvoice magisterial in its severity.
Instantly, Mary was aroused to a new outburst of protest. Once again,her eyes shot their fires at the man seated behind the desk, and shewent forward a step imperiously, dragging the officer in her wake.
"Yes, the jury found me guilty," she agreed, with fine scorn in themusical cadences of her voice. "Do you know why? I can tell you,Mr. Gilder. It was because they had been out for three hours withoutreaching a decision. The evidence didn't seem to be quite enough forsome of them, after all. Well, the judge threatened to lock them up allnight. The men wanted to get home. The easy thing to do was to find meguilty, and let it go at that. Was that fair, do you think? And that'snot all, either. Was it fair of you, Mr. Gilder? Was it fair of you tocome to the court this morning, and tell the judge that I should be sentto prison as a warning to others?"
A quick flush burned on the massive face of the man whom she thusaccused, and his eyes refused to meet her steady gaze of reproach.
"You know!" he exclaimed, in momentary consternation. Again, her moodhad affected his own, so that through a few hurrying seconds he felthimself somehow guilty of wrong against this girl, so frank and sorebuking.
"I heard you in the courtroom," she said. "The dock isn't very far fromthe bench where you spoke to the judge about my case. Yes, I heard you.It wasn't: Did I do it? Or, didn't I do it? No; it was only that I mustbe made a warning to others."
Again, silence fell for a tense interval. Then, finally, the girl spokein a different tone. Where before her voice had been vibrant with theinstinct of complaint against the mockery of justice under which shesuffered, now there was a deeper note, that of most solemn truth.
"Mr. Gilder," she said simply, "as God is my judge, I am going to prisonfor three years for something I didn't do."
But the sincerity of her broken cry fell on unheeding ears. The coarsenature of the officer had long ago lost whatever elements of softnessthere might have been to develop in a gentler occupation. As for theowner of the store, he was not sufficiently sensitive to feel the verityin the accents of the speaker. Moreover, he was a man who followed theconventional, with never a distraction due to imagination and sympathy.Just now, too, he was experiencing a keen irritation against himselfbecause of the manner in which he had been sensible to the influenceof her protestation, despite his will to the contrary. That irritationagainst himself only reacted against the girl, and caused him tosteel his heart to resist any tendency toward commiseration. So, thisdeclaration of innocence was made quite in vain--indeed, served ratherto strengthen his disfavor toward the complainant, and to make hismanner harsher when she voiced the pitiful question over which she hadwondered and grieved.
"Why did you ask the judge to send me to prison?"
"The thieving that has been going on in this store for over a year hasgot to stop," Gilder answered emphatically, with all his usual energyof manner restored. As he spoke, he raised his eyes and met the girl'sglance fairly. Thought of the robberies was quite enough to make himpitiless toward the offender.
"Sending me to prison won't stop it," Mary Turner said, drearily.
"Perhaps not," Gilder sternly retorted. "But the discovery andpunishment of the other guilty ones will." His manner changed to abusiness-like alertness. "You sent word to me that you could tell me howto stop the thefts in the store. Well, my girl, do this, and, while Ican make no definite promise, I'll
see what can be done about gettingyou out of your present difficulty." He picked up a pencil, pulled apad of blank paper convenient to his hand, and looked at the girlexpectantly, with aggressive inquiry in his gaze. "Tell me now," heconcluded, "who were your pals?"
The matter-of-fact manner of this man who had unwittingly wronged her sofrightfully was the last straw on the girl's burden of suffering. Underit, her patient endurance broke, and she cried out in a voice of utterdespair that caused Gilder to start nervously, and even impelled thestolid officer to a frown of remonstrance.
"I have no pals!" she ejaculated, furiously. "I never stole anything inmy life. Must I go on telling you over and over again?" Her voice rosein a wail of misery. "Oh, why won't any one believe me?"
Gilder was much offended by this display of an hysterical grief, whichseemed to his phlegmatic temperament altogether unwarranted by thecircumstances. He spoke decisively.
"Unless you can control yourself, you must go." He pushed away the padof paper, and tossed the pencil aside in physical expression of hisdispleasure. "Why did you send that message, if you have nothing tosay?" he demanded, with increasing choler.
But now the girl had regained her former poise. She stood a littledrooping and shaken, where for a moment she had been erect and tensed.There was a vast weariness in her words as she answered.
"I have something to tell you, Mr. Gilder," she said, quietly. "Only,I--I sort of lost my grip on the way here, with this man by my side."
"Most of 'em do, the first time," the officer commented, with a certaingrim appreciation.
"Well?" Gilder insisted querulously, as the girl hesitated.
At once, Mary went on speaking, and now a little increase of vigortrembled in her tones.
"When you sit in a cell for three months waiting for your trial, as Idid, you think a lot. And, so, I got the idea that if I could talk toyou, I might be able to make you understand what's really wrong. And ifI could do that, and so help out the other girls, what has happened tome would not, after all, be quite so awful--so useless, somehow." Hervoice lowered to a quick pleading, and she bent toward the man at thedesk. "Mr. Gilder," she questioned, "do you really want to stop thegirls from stealing?"
"Most certainly I do," came the forcible reply.
The girl spoke with a great earnestness, deliberately.
"Then, give them a fair chance."
The magnate stared in sincere astonishment over this absurd, this futilesuggestion for his guidance.
"What do you mean?" he vociferated, with rising indignation. There wasan added hostility in his demeanor, for it seemed to him that this thiefof his goods whom he had brought to justice was daring to trifle withhim. He grew wrathful over the suspicion, but a secret curiosity stillheld his temper within bounds "What do you mean?" he repeated; and nowthe full force of his strong voice set the room trembling.
The tones of the girl came softly musical, made more delicately resonantto the ear by contrast with the man's roaring.
"Why," she said, very gently, "I mean just this: Give them a livingchance to be honest."
"A living chance!" The two words were exploded with dynamic violence.The preposterousness of the advice fired Gilder with resentment sopervasive that through many seconds he found himself unable to expressthe rage that flamed within him.
The girl showed herself undismayed by his anger.
"Yes," she went on, quietly; "that's all there is to it. Give them aliving chance to get enough food to eat, and a decent room to sleep in,and shoes that will keep their feet off the pavement winter mornings. Doyou think that any girl wants to steal? Do you think that any girl wantsto risk----?"
By this time, however, Gilder had regained his powers of speech, and heinterrupted stormily.
"And is this what you have taken up my time for? You want to make amaudlin plea for guilty, dishonest girls, when I thought you reallymeant to bring me facts."
Nevertheless, Mary went on with her arraignment uncompromisingly. Therewas a strange, compelling energy in her inflections that penetrated eventhe pachydermatous officer, so that, though he thought her raving, helet her rave on, which was not at all his habit of conduct, and didindeed surprise him mightily. As for Gilder, he felt helpless in somepuzzling fashion that was totally foreign to his ordinary self. He wasstill glowing with wrath over the method by which he had been victimizedinto giving the girl a hearing. Yet, despite his chagrin, he realizedthat he could not send her from him forthwith. By some inexplicablespell she bound him impotent.
"We work nine hours a day," the quiet voice went on, a curious pathosin the rich timbre of it; "nine hours a day, for six days in the week.That's a fact, isn't it? And the trouble is, an honest girl can't liveon six dollars a week. She can't do it, and buy food and clothes, andpay room-rent and carfare. That's another fact, isn't it?"
Mary regarded the owner of the store with grave questioning in herviolet eyes. Under the urgency of emotion, color crept into the pallidcheeks, and now her face was very beautiful--so beautiful, indeed, thatfor a little the charm of its loveliness caught the man's gaze, and hewatched her with a new respect, born of appreciation for her femininedelightfulness. The impression was far too brief. Gilder was not givento esthetic raptures over women. Always, the business instinct was thedominant. So, after the short period of amazed admiration over suchunexpected winsomeness, his thoughts flew back angrily to the matterswhereof she spoke so ridiculously.
"I don't care to discuss these things," he declared peremptorily, as thegirl remained silent for a moment.
"And I have no wish to discuss anything," Mary returned evenly. "Ionly want to give you what you asked for--facts." A faint smile ofreminiscence curved the girl's lips. "When they first locked me up," sheexplained, without any particular evidence of emotion, "I used to sitand hate you."
"Oh, of course!" came the caustic exclamation from Gilder.
"And then, I thought that perhaps you did not understand," Marycontinued; "that, if I were to tell you how things really are, it mightbe you would change them somehow."
At this ingenuous statement, the owner of the store gave forth a gasp ofsheer stupefaction.
"I!" he cried, incredulously. "I change my business policy because youask me to!"
There was something imperturbable in the quality of the voice as thegirl went resolutely forward with her explanation. It was as if shewere discharging a duty not to be gainsaid, not to be thwarted byany difficulty, not even the realization that all the effort must beultimately in vain.
"Do you know how we girls live?--but, of course, you don't. Three of usin one room, doing our own cooking over the two-burner gas-stove, andour own washing and ironing evenings, after being on our feet for ninehours."
The enumeration of the sordid details left the employer absolutelyunmoved, since he lacked the imagination necessary to sympathizeactually with the straining evil of a life such as the girl had known.Indeed, he spoke with an air of just remonstrance, as if the girl'scharges were mischievously faulty.
"I have provided chairs behind the counters," he stated.
There was no especial change in the girl's voice as she answered hisdefense. It continued musically low, but there was in it the insistentnote of sincerity.
"But have you ever seen a girl sitting in one of them?" she questioned,coldly. "Please answer me. Have you? Of course not," she said, after alittle pause during which the owner had remained silent. She shookher head in emphatic negation. "And do you understand why? It's simplybecause every girl knows that the manager of her department would thinkhe could get along without her, if he were to see her sitting down----loafing, you know! So, she would be discharged. All it amounts tois that, after being on her feet for nine hours, the girl usually walkshome, in order to save carfare. Yes, she walks, whether sick or well.Anyhow, you are generally so tired, it don't make much difference whichyou are."
Gilder was fuming under these strictures, which seemed to him altogetherbaseless attacks on himself. His exasperation steadily
waxed against thegirl, a convicted felon, who thus had the audacity to beard him.
"What has all this to do with the question of theft in the store?"he rumbled, huffily. "That was the excuse for your coming here. And,instead of telling me something, you rant about gas-stoves and carfare."
The inexorable voice went on in its monotone, as if he had not spoken.
"And, when you are really sick, and have to stop work, what are yougoing to do then? Do you know, Mr. Gilder, that the first time astraight girl steals, it's often because she had to have a doctor--orsome luxury like that? And some of them do worse than steal. Yes, theydo--girls that started straight, and wanted to stay that way. But, ofcourse, some of them get so tired of the whole grind that--that----"
The man who was the employer of hundreds concerning whom these grimtruths were uttered, stirred uneasily in his chair, and there came atouch of color into the healthy brown of his cheeks as he spoke hisprotest.
"I'm not their guardian. I can't watch over them after they leave thestore. They are paid the current rate of wages--as much as any otherstore pays." As he spoke, the anger provoked by this unexpectedassault on him out of the mouth of a convict flamed high in virtuousrepudiation. "Why," he went on vehemently, "no man living does morefor his employees than I do. Who gave the girls their fine rest-roomsupstairs? I did! Who gave them the cheap lunch-rooms? I did!"
"But you won't pay them enough to live on!" The very fact that the wordswere spoken without any trace of rancor merely made this statement ofindisputable truth obnoxious to the man, who was stung to more savageresentment in asserting his impugned self-righteousness.
"I pay them the same as the other stores do," he repeated, sullenly.
Yet once again, the gently cadenced voice gave answer, an answerinformed with that repulsive insistence to the man who sought to resisther indictment of him.
"But you won't pay them enough to live on." The simple lucidity of thecharge forbade direct reply.
Gilder betook himself to evasion by harking back to the establishedground of complaint.
"And, so, you claim that you were forced to steal. That's the plea youmake for yourself and your friends."
"I wasn't forced to steal," came the answer, spoken in the monotone thathad marked her utterance throughout most of the interview. "I wasn'tforced to steal, and I didn't steal. But, all the same, that's the plea,as you call it, that I'm making for the other girls. There are hundredsof them who steal because they don't get enough to eat. I said I wouldtell you how to stop the stealing. Well, I have done it. Give the girlsa fair chance to be honest. You asked me for the names, Mr. Gilder.There's only one name on which to put the blame for the wholebusiness--and that name is Edward Gilder!... Now, won't you do somethingabout it?"
At that naked question, the owner of the store jumped up from hischair, and stood glowering at the girl who risked a request so full ofvituperation against himself.
"How dare you speak to me like this?" he thundered.
There was no disconcertion exhibited by the one thus challenged. On thecontrary, she repeated her question with a simple dignity that stillfurther outraged the man.
"Won't you, please, do something about it?"
"How dare you?" he shouted again. Now, there was stark wonder in hiseyes as he put the question.
"Why, I dared," Mary Turner explained, "because you have done all theharm you can to me. And, now, I'm trying to give you the chance to dobetter by the others. You ask me why I dare. I have a right to dare!I have been straight all my life. I have wanted decent food and warmclothes, and--a little happiness, all the time I have worked for you,and I have gone without those things, just to stay straight.... The endof it all is: You are sending me to prison for something I didn't do.That's why I dare!"
Cassidy, the officer in charge of Mary Turner, had stood patientlybeside her all this while, always holding her by the wrist. He hadbeen mildly interested in the verbal duel between the big man of thedepartment store and this convict in his own keeping. Vaguely, he hadmarveled at the success of the frail girl in declaiming of her injuriesbefore the magnate. He had felt no particular interest beyond that,merely looking on as one might at any entertaining spectacle. Thequestion at issue was no concern of his. His sole business was to takethe girl away when the interview should be ended. It occurred to him nowthat this might, in fact, be the time to depart. It seemed, indeed, thatthe insistent reiteration of the girl had at last left he owner of thestore quite powerless to answer. It was possible, then, that it werewiser the girl should be removed. With the idea in mind, he staredinquiringly at Gilder until he caught that flustered gentleman's eye.A nod from the magnate sufficed him. Gilder, in truth, could not trusthimself just then to an audible command. He was seriously disturbed bythe gently spoken truths that had issued from the girl's lips. He wasnot prepared with any answer, though he hotly resented every word ofher accusation. So, when he caught the question in the glance ofthe officer, he felt a guilty sensation of relief as he signified anaffirmative by his gesture.
Cassidy faced about, and in his movement there was a tug at the wristof the girl that set her moving toward the door. Her realization of whatthis meant was shown in her final speech.
"Oh, he can take me now," she said, bitterly. Then her voice rose abovethe monotone that had contented her hitherto. Into the music of hertones beat something sinister, evilly vindictive, as she faced about atthe doorway to which Cassidy had led her. Her face, as she scrutinizedonce again the man at the desk, was coldly malignant.
"Three years isn't forever," she said, in a level voice. "When I comeout, you are going to pay for every minute of them, Mr. Gilder. Therewon't be a day or an hour that I won't remember that at the last it wasyour word sent me to prison. And you are going to pay me for that. Youare going to pay me for the five years I have starved making money foryou--that, too! You are going to pay me for all the things I am losingtoday, and----"
The girl thrust forth her left hand, on that side where stood theofficer. So vigorous was her movement that Cassidy's clasp was thrownoff the wrist. But the bond between the two was not broken, for fromwrist to wrist showed taut the steel chain of the manacles. The girlshook the links of the handcuffs in a gesture stronger than words. Inher final utterance to the agitated man at the desk, there was a coldthreat, a prophecy of disaster. From the symbol of her degradation, shelooked to the man whose action had placed it there. In the clashing oftheir glances, hers won the victory, so that his eyes fell before themenace in hers.
"You are going to pay me for this!" she said. Her voice was little morethan a whisper, but it was loud in the listener's heart. "Yes, you aregoing to pay--for this!"