Captain Ben Hall’s kindness was the one thing Mr. Stone forgot when he said no one had ever helped him.  He disliked to be reminded of it.  It was a long while ago and the captain was dead.  However, being reminded, he had called upon a friend in the tailoring line and had obtained for Keziah the place of sewing woman.  She decided to become housekeeper at the Trumet parsonage and so notified him.  Then he washed his hands of her.

But now he was compelled to soil them again.  Keziah had appeared at his office, without warning, and demanded that he find her a position.  “Demanded” was the proper word.  Certainly she had not begged.  She seemed to feel that her demand was right and proper, and his acceding to it the least he could do.

“What a fine place you’ve got here, Abner!” she said, inspecting the office and the store.  “I declare it’s finer than the one you had when you first went into business, afore you failed.  I wish father could have lived to see it.  He’d have realized that his judgment was good, even though his investment wasn’t.”

Captain Hall had invested largely in that first business, the one which failed.  Mr. Stone changed the subject.  Later in the day he again sought his friend, the tailor, and Keziah was installed in the loft of the latter’s Washington Street shop, beside the other women and girls who sewed and sewed from seven in the morning until six at night.  Mr. Stone had left her there and come away, feeling that an unpleasant matter was disposed of.  He had made some inquiries as to where she intended staying, even added a half-hearted invitation to dinner that evening at his home.  But she declined.

“No, thank you, Abner,” she said, “I’m goin’ to find a boardin’ place and I’d just as soon nobody knew where I was stayin’, for the present.  And there’s one thing I want to ask you:  don’t tell a soul I am here.  Not a soul.  If anyone should come askin’ for me, don’t give ’em any satisfaction.  I’ll tell you why some day, perhaps.  I can’t now.”

This was what troubled Mr. Stone as he sat in his office.  Why should this woman wish to have her whereabouts kept a secret?  There was a reason for this, of course.  Was it a respectable reason, or the other kind?  If the latter, his own name might be associated with the scandal.  He wished, for the fiftieth time, that there were no poor relations.

A boy came into the office.  “There is some one here to see you, Mr. Stone,” he said.

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know, sir.  Looks like a seafaring man, a sea captain, I should say—­but he won’t give his name.  Says it’s important and nobody but you’ll do.”

“Humph!  All right.  Tell him to wait.  I’ll be out in a minute.”

Sea captains and ship owners were Stone & Barker’s best customers.  The senior partner emerged from the office with a smile on his face.

“Ah!” he said, extending his hand.  “Glad to see you, Captain—­er—­”