searched the crowd and the half-darkness beyond. She imagined
that every approaching tall man was her lover. With the
frankness to which she had been bred she made no concealment of
her heart-sick anxiety.

``He may have to be at the theater,'' said Sophie, herself
extremely uneasy. Partly through shrewdness, partly through her
natural suspicion of strangers, she felt that Mr. Feuerstein,
upon whom she was building, was not a rock.

``No,'' replied Hilda. ``He told me he wouldn't be at the
theater, but would surely come here.'' The fact that her lover
had said so settled it to her mind.

They did not leave the Square until ten o'clock, when it was
almost deserted and most of its throngs of an hour before were in
bed sleeping soundly in the content that comes from a life of
labor. And when she did get to bed she lay awake for nearly an
hour, tired though she was. Without doubt some misfortune had
befallen him--``He's been hurt or is ill,'' she decided. The
next morning she stood in the door of the shop watching for the
postman on his first round; as he turned the corner of Second
Street, she could not restrain herself, but ran to meet him.

``Any letter for me?'' she inquired in a voice that compelled him
to feel personal guilt in having to say ``No.''

It was a day of mistakes in weights and in making up packages, a
day of vain searching for some comforting explanation of Mr.
Feuerstein's failure and silence. After supper Sophie came and