“Who told you?” was Mildred’s prompt response to Belle’s news that night, while a sudden bloom in her pale face showed how deeply the tidings interested her.

“No matter how I learned the fact,” replied Belle a little brusquely; ’it’s true.  He wouldn’t lift his little finger to keep you from starving.”

“You wrong him,” cried Mildred passionately; “and I don’t wish you ever to speak of him again.  I know who told you:  it was Roger Atwood, and I wish he would leave me and my affairs alone.  He is singularly stupid and ill-bred to meddle in such a matter.”

“He has not meddled,” retorted Belle indignantly, and wholly off her guard; “he thought you might like to know the truth, and he learned it in a way that left no trace.  When you are in the streets you are always looking for Mr. Arnold (it’s a pity he wasn’t doing a little looking, too), and now your mind can be at ease.  He isn’t sick or dead; he’s entirely safe and having a good time, faring sumptuously every day, while you are dying by inches for little more than bread and a nook in a tenement-house.  I don’t care what you say, I detest such a man.”

Mildred’s overtaxed nerves gave way at Belle’s harsh and prosaic words, and throwing herself on her couch she sobbed so bitterly that the inconsiderate child, in deep compunction, coaxed and pleaded with her not “to take it so hard,” and ended by crying in sympathy, almost as heartily as Mildred herself.  The latter was completely disarmed of her anger by Belle’s feelings, and, indeed, as she came to think it all over, it did not seem so like desertion on Arnold’s part, since he might have written from Europe and the letter have failed to reach her.  That he should have been in New York all this time and have made no effort to find her would seem heartless indeed.  At any rate, with her rare fidelity and faith, she would believe nothing against him without absolute proof.

But of Roger Atwood she thought resentfully, “He reads my very thoughts.  He has seen me looking for Vinton half-unconsciously when in the streets.  He keeps himself in the background, and no doubt thinks himself very distant and considerate; but I can scarcely turn in any direction but I see his shadow, or meet with some indication that he is watching and waiting.”

There was more truth in her words than she half suspected.  His duties required that he should be down town very early in the morning, but he was usually released in the afternoon, for his uncle tacitly humored his desire for study.  Scarcely an evening elapsed that the young man did not pass and repass the shop in which Mildred was employed, for through the lighted windows he could see the object of his thoughts unobserved, and not infrequently he followed her as she wearily returned homeward, and his heart ached with the impotent desire to lighten the burdens of her life.  He feared that she would never accept of his watchful care or thank him for it; but love is its own reward, and impels to action that does not well stand the test of the world’s prosaic judgment.  Beyond this brief and furtive gratification of his passion, he lost no time in sighing or sentiment, but bent his mind to his tasks with such well-directed and persistent energy that the commission merchant occasionally nodded significantly; for, in accordance with his habit, he took counsel of no one except himself.