She glanced at the curious faces of the watchers, then turned and followed Gabriel, who was already walking up the alley, toward the brighter lights of Stuart Street. For a moment, one or two of the men hesitated as though undecided whether or not to follow after; but one backward look by Gabriel instantly dispelled any desire to intrude. And as Gabriel and the woman turned into the street, the little knot of curiosity-seekers dissolved into its component atoms, and vanished.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE TRAP IS SPRUNG.
"It—it's all along o' that there Mr. Micolo!" the woman suddenly exclaimed, "Him an' his rent-bill! If he'd ha' let me in, there, tonight, I could ha' got Ed's things an' then started to my sister's, out to Scottsville. But he wouldn't. He claimed they was two-seventy-five still owin', and I didn't have but about fifty cents, so I couldn't pay it. So he wouldn't let me in. Natchally, anybody'd feel bad, like that, 'specially when a man told 'em he'd hold their kid's clothes an' things till they paid—which they couldn't!"
"Naturally, of course," answered Gabriel, rather dazed by this sudden burst of details, with which she seemed to think he should already be quite familiar—details all sordid and commonplace, through which he seemed to perceive, dimly as in a dark glass, some mean and ugly tragedy of poverty and ignorance and sin.
"Are you hungry?" he asked, all at once. "If so, come in here, where we can talk quietly and get things straight." He pointed at a cheap restaurant, across the street.
"Hungry? Gord, yes!" she exclaimed. Only I—I wouldn't ask, if I fell on the sidewalk! Fifty cents—yes, I got that much, but I been tryin' to get enough to pay Mr. Micolo, an' get hold of Ed's things, an'—"
"All right, forget that, now," commanded Gabriel. He took her by the arm and piloted her across the thoroughfare, then into the dingy hash-house and to a table in a far corner. A few minutes later, pretty much everything on the bill of fare was before them on the greasy table.