Hazel's pride came to her rescue before she was half-way home. Instinctively she had turned to that refuge, where she could lock herself in her own room and cry her protest against it all. But she had done no wrong, nothing of which to be ashamed, and when the first shock of the news article wore off, she threw up her head and refused to consider what the world at large might think. So she went back to the office at one o'clock and took up her work. Long before evening she sensed that others had read the Gazette. Not that any one mentioned it, but sundry curious glances made her painfully aware of the fact.
Mrs. Stout evidently was on the watch, for she appeared in the hall almost as the front door closed behind Hazel.
"How de do, Miss Weir?" she greeted. "My, but you fell into quite a bit of a fortune, ain't you?"
"I only know what the papers say," Hazel returned coldly.
"Just fancy! You didn't know nothing about it?" Mrs. Stout regarded her with frank curiosity. "There's been two or three gentlemen from the papers 'ere to-day awskin' for you. Such terrible fellows to quiz one, they are."
"Well?" Hazel filled in the pause.
"Oh, I just thought I'd tell you," Mrs. Stout observed, "that they got precious little out o' me. I ain't the talkin' kind. I told 'em nothink whatever, you may be sure."
"They're perfectly welcome to learn all that can be learned about me," Hazel returned quietly. "I don't like newspaper notoriety, but I can't muzzle the papers, and it's easy for them to get my whole history if they want it."
She was on the stairs when she finished speaking. She had just reached the first landing when she heard the telephone bell, and a second or two later the land-lady called:
"Oh, Miss Weir! Telephone."