“How is your brother?” he asked, when he could trust himself to speak.

The boy’s lips trembled and he began crying before he answered.

“He’s pretty bad, sir; in the hospital,” he whispered, brokenly.  “They think he’ll die!  You see, his sweetheart, Miss Jennings, died the very day after I stole the money, and the two things, with his hard work, knocked poor Fred out completely.”

“Was Miss Jennings his sweetheart?” asked Mr. Denton in astonishment.  This was a phase of that horror that he had not even dreamed of.

“Oh, yes, they were sweethearts,” said the boy, with a hysterical giggle.  “They was awfully in love, but they couldn’t afford to get married.”

Mr. Denton rose from his desk and paced the office floor.  The misery in the situation was even blacker than he had realized.

“See here, boy!” he said suddenly.  “Give me your mother’s address, and here’s a ten-dollar bill for her.  Now, go home and take care of her.”

The boy’s face flushed crimson as he refused the money.

“I wouldn’t dare to take it,” he muttered sheepishly.  “She’d think I stole it.”

“Then I’ll send it by mail,” said Mr. Denton quickly, “and I’ll tell her at the same time that we don’t mind about the three hundred.  We can forgive a boy who only stole to help a sick mother.”

“Oh, sir!” cried the boy.  But he could get no farther.  The next second he was shaking with a storm of sobs.  The agony of his repentance had reached its limit.  Before he left the building the letter had been posted to his mother through the pneumatic mailing tube that opened in Mr. Denton’s office.

Mr. Denton’s next duty was to see his buyers.  He was still smarting with indignation over that “sweatshop” horror.

In less than an hour he had them all assembled in the receiving-room, which was piled from end to end with the products of underpaid labor.

His speech to them was short but decidedly to the point.  They were to submit the names of the persons or firms whom they bought of, and receive his express commands concerning all further orders.

“I cannot have the souls of these poor creatures on my conscience any longer,” he said at the conclusion of his statements.  “So, if the public still want these goods, we will make them ourselves and pay those poor seamstresses what they are worth, besides letting them work in cleanly surroundings.”

“But, Mr. Denton,” spoke up one of the buyers who was a privileged character in the establishment, “that will entail endless work for the cashier’s department, as well as work-rooms.  As it is now, there is but one bill to pay where by your plan there would be a hundred or more, and, besides, we have no work-rooms to spare; we are already overcrowded.”

“I know it,” replied Mr. Denton, sadly, “and as I am well aware that reformation, like charity, should ‘begin at home,’ I must wait a little before putting my plan into action.”