“Later. The landlady of this house has just been in to tell me I must move out in the morning. She doesn’t desire men like me in her house. She says she knows my kind, and I am worse than the white-slavers the papers tell about. Perhaps she is right. I have no words to express my misery at my conduct. I will rise at five o’clock in the morning and seek a new rooming-house where I am not known.”
“Saturday, April 30.
“I have another furnished room. It is not highly desirable. I rented it under an assumed name, and I will move when the present danger has had time to decrease. I tremble lest Mrs. Benson should come to seek me in the store. I spend as much of my time in the office as possible, and keep a sharp lookout when I am on the floor.
‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!’
I know now something of the feeling of the felon who has escaped and whom every man’s hand is raised against. But I have brought it on myself. I only hope it will not result in my final expulsion from the store. McDavitt’s is very careful about the character of their employees.
“I put the matter about lady clerks in the department up to the manager this afternoon. To my surprise, he took to it rather kindly, and will refer it up to the proper authorities.
“A chilly, rainy day. I am tired out, but very happy to be secluded in this room. It is pleasant to sit alone and hear the rain outside.
“But I am not altogether alone. I have a memory, and a name, and I have a hope. Anna. But why is my heart lifted up? I am not worthy even to think of her.