“Impossible—­impossible!” exclaimed the old Englishman, alarmed and perturbed.  “It’s quite out of the question.  I wouldn’t presume.”

“Well, do you love her, or not?”

“Really, Mrs. McTeague, I—­I—­you must excuse me.  It’s a matter so personal—­so—­I—­Oh, yes, I love her.  Oh, yes, indeed,” he exclaimed, suddenly.

“Well, then, she loves you.  She told me so.”

“Oh!”

“She did.  She said those very words.”

Miss Baker had said nothing of the kind—­would have died sooner than have made such a confession; but Trina had drawn her own conclusions, like every other lodger of the flat, and thought the time was come for decided action.

“Now you do just as I tell you, and when she comes home, go right in and see her, and have it over with.  Now, don’t say another word.  I’m going; but you do just as I tell you.”

Trina turned about and went down-stairs.  She had decided, since Miss Baker was not at home, that she would run over and see Maria; possibly she could have lunch there.  At any rate, Maria would offer her a cup of tea.

Old Grannis stood for a long time just as Trina had left him, his hands trembling, the blood coming and going in his withered cheeks.

“She said, she—­she—­she told her—­she said that—­that——­” he could get no farther.

Then he faced about and entered his room, closing the door behind him.  For a long time he sat in his armchair, drawn close to the wall in front of the table on which stood his piles of pamphlets and his little binding apparatus.

“I wonder,” said Trina, as she crossed the yard back of Zerkow’s house, “I wonder what rent Zerkow and Maria pay for this place.  I’ll bet it’s cheaper than where Mac and I are.”

Trina found Maria sitting in front of the kitchen stove, her chin upon her breast.  Trina went up to her.  She was dead.  And as Trina touched her shoulder, her head rolled sideways and showed a fearful gash in her throat under her ear.  All the front of her dress was soaked through and through.

Trina backed sharply away from the body, drawing her hands up to her very shoulders, her eyes staring and wide, an expression of unutterable horror twisting her face.

“Oh-h-h!” she exclaimed in a long breath, her voice hardly rising above a whisper.  “Oh-h, isn’t that horrible!” Suddenly she turned and fled through the front part of the house to the street door, that opened upon the little alley.  She looked wildly about her.  Directly across the way a butcher’s boy was getting into his two-wheeled cart drawn up in front of the opposite house, while near by a peddler of wild game was coming down the street, a brace of ducks in his hand.

“Oh, say—­say,” gasped Trina, trying to get her voice, “say, come over here quick.”

The butcher’s boy paused, one foot on the wheel, and stared.  Trina beckoned frantically.

“Come over here, come over here quick.”