“You are all wrong,” she said, sadly.  “You cannot understand!  There are some things more precious than gold to us, more precious even than comfort or affection.  Not for the world would I lose this ‘something’ which I possess!  It is the haven of my soul at the hour of every trial.  It is the one solace of my life in the desperate condition that I have reached.  You, a man of years, should not argue so wrongfully.  It is wicked to place temptations before the young and wretched.”

She had regained her composure as she finished speaking, and a tinge of righteous indignation made her voice vibrate strangely.

“Is it wrong to do good?” asked the man, a trifle sullenly.  “Surely comfort, ease, health are the best a man can offer.  Nature did not create you girls for a life of toil.  You were made for love, for homage and adoration.  Yet when one offers you these you turn to your nameless ‘something’ and, like the martyrs of old, suffer torture and death rather than accept what is your due.  It is incomprehensible, truly!”

“Hush!  Your words are an insult!  I will not hear them.  It is true that my knowledge of the world is limited, but this much I know:  the God of righteousness has placed me here for a purpose, and that purpose is not to play the coward in time of trouble or to prove traitor to the highest, holiest instincts which permeate my being!  Working girl I am and may always be, but my lot is a queen’s beside what you suggest!  God pity the poor women who have not the wisdom to see it.”

She was standing before him now like a beautiful statue, one arm uplifted to emphasize her utterances.

“My God!  You are superb!  Magnificent!” muttered the man involuntarily.  “I would give my life to be worthy of such a woman!”

Faith’s arm dropped suddenly, and she drew away with a gasp.  There was a look in the man’s face that frightened her for a moment.

“You have taught me a lesson,” he said, almost hoarsely.  “I thank you, child, and I bid you good-evening.”

“But the number,” cried Faith, as he was turning away.  “You wished me to direct you to a certain number.”

“Never mind it now.  I can find it,” was the answer.

He was walking swiftly away in the darkness of the street, when a figure approached him from the opposite direction.

The two met directly under the gas lamp where Faith had been standing a moment before, and as they met Faith heard a sharp exclamation.

Her sharp eyes recognized the newcomer at once.  It was no other than Bob Hardy, the store detective.

CHAPTER XIII.

A heavenly inspector.

When Faith Marvin reached home after her unpleasant interview with the well-dressed stranger, she was in a state of nervousness that nearly bordered upon hysterics.  The fact that Bob Hardy was a witness to what she had supposed was a mere accidental meeting gave her an instinctive clue to the identity of the man, and her cheeks flushed with shame as she connected him in her thoughts with that insulting proposition of the detective.