about one minute to transact your business with me, then the cashier
will pay you for two days' work."

"No, sir, he will not. Do you think I'd take money stained with
blood?"

"What do you mean? What kind of a girl are you anyway?"

"I'm an honest girl; I believe in God and the devil--I believe in
them both too well to have anything more to do with you unless you
can prove you didn't know any more than I did. You think to frighten
me with black looks, but I've just come from a greater presence
than yours--the presence of one who'll soon be your master--Death,
and death for which you are responsible."

"Good God! what do you mean?"

"What did you mean by turning off without a word a poor girl--one
who for years had done her best for you? What did you mean by making
a place for me in that way? Her mother died last night--starved--and
I'd have you know that I'd have starved before I'd have taken her
place had I known what I know now. Go look at your work at the top
of a tenement-house! There's more flesh on your arm than on that
dead woman's body, and the poor girl herself hadn't eaten anything
for two days when she came here last night. She'd have died, too,
if sister Millie hadn't stayed with her last night. I hope you
didn't know any more than I did. If you did you've got to settle
with God and the devil before you're through with this kind of
business."