Sadie started and listened intently, for that voice seemed to carry her mind back to the shroud factory with vivid power.
But still she could not remember to whom the voice belonged, although a wild hope came over her that perhaps some of her friends were searching for her—a wild hope speedily dissipated, for when she laid down upon the floor and placed her ear at a gaping crack she discovered that the conversation, which began to grow loud and threatening, related to the larceny of sundry shirts and collars.
“You failed to bring the right number last week, and this week it is the same, so I determined to come myself and to force you to give up the missing things, for I will not be robbed in this wholesale fashion,” said the voice; and then Sadie’s hopes fell into ashes.
“It is only one of her customers whom she has robbed of his shirts,” she decided.
But so keen was her curiosity over the owner of the familiar voice that she stationed herself at the window, hoping to see him emerge from the house.
She was not disappointed, for presently the furious war of words below came to an end, and a man stepped out into the street with a bundle under his arm—the missing shirts, which the dishonest washerwoman had yielded up on being threatened with arrest.
Sadie Allen screamed with joy and pounded furiously on the window to attract the man’s attention.
It was Waverley Osborne, the young clerk who had been in love with Fairfax Fielding, and for whose sake Belva Platt had plotted such a wicked revenge on the innocent girl.
The young man looked up at the noise above his head, and quickly recognized the face of the good-natured girl whom he had seen so often at the factory.
“Good gracious, Miss Allen, what are you doing here?” he exclaimed, and she answered: