"Help and decent fairness are needed; not charity. What's your paper, by the way?"
"The 'Clarion.'"
"Oh!" said the other, in an altered tone. "I shouldn't suppose that the 'Clarion' would go in much for any kind of reform."
"Do you read it?"
"No. But I know Dr. Surtaine."
"Dr. Surtaine doesn't own the 'Clarion.' I do."
"You're Harrington Surtaine? I thought I had seen you somewhere before. But you said you were a reporter."
"Pardon me, I didn't. Mrs. Breen said that. However, it's true; I'm doing a bit of reporting on this case. And I'm going to do some writing on it before I'm through."
"As for Dr. Surtaine—" began the young clergyman, then checked himself, pondering.
What further he might have had to say was cut off by a startling occurrence. A door on the floor above opened; there was a swift patter of feet, and then from overhead, a long-drawn, terrible cry. Immediately a young girl, her shawl drawn about her face, ran from the darkness into the half-light of the lower hall and would have passed between them but that Norman Hale caught her by the arm.