While Collingham thus weighed the counsels offered him at the bank, Gussie Follett was blindly making her way homeward from Corinne's with a paper so folded in her hand as not to display its headlines. She had gone to her work with comparative cheerfulness, since, on the previous day, Jennie had been assured by no less authority than Mr. Collingham himself that Teddy should not be sent to jail. So long as he was not sent to jail, they would be free from public comment, and, free from public comment, they could "manage somehow." Managing somehow being an art in which they had gained authority, they were not afraid of that, even though it involved parting with the one great asset against calamity, the house.
Gussie's first intimation of bad news came when, on entering the shop, she found the four or five other girls huddled round Corinne. Her appearance made them start as if she was a ghost. Her own heart sank at that, though she hailed this shudder with a laugh.
"Say, girls, is this the big reel in 'The Specter Bride'?"
Corinne, whose real name was Mamie Callaghan, emerged from a miniature forest of upright metal rods crowned with hats at various roguish angles. A dark, wavy-nosed woman of cajoling Irish witchery, she could hardly keep the prank from her voice even at such a time as this.
"So, Gussie, you don't know! Well, some one's got to break it to you, and I guess it'll have to be me."
But it was broken already, even before Corinne had brought forward the paper she was hiding behind her back.
"Teddy!" Gussie cried out. "There's something about him in that thing. Let me see it! Let me see it!"
Corinne let her see it, and the work was done. Gussie couldn't read beyond the headlines with their "Robbery" and "Murder" in Italic capitals, but she grasped enough. The snapshot of Teddy taken in the road, just as he had been dragged, a mass of slime, out of the morass, made her reel backward as if about to fall; but when Eily O'Brien sprang to her support she waved her away gently. She was not going to faint. Her physical strength wouldn't leave her, whatever else was gone.
"I'm—I'm going home," was all she said, crushing the paper against her breast.
"Oh, Gus, lemme go with you!" Eily had begged; but this kindness, too, Gussie put away from her.