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"Now!" he said. "Where you got this? Tell me."

"I've told you how I got it."

"That was a lie."

So - Rudolph had told him!

"I like that!" she blustered, trying to gain time. "I guess it's time they gave me something - I've worked hard enough. They gave them to all the girls."

"That is a lie also."

"I like that. Telling me I'm lying. You ask Mr. Graham Spencer. He'll tell you."

"If that is true, why do you shake so?"

"You scare me, father." She burst into frightened tears. "I don't know what's got into you. I do my best. I give you all I make. I've kept this house going, and" - she gained a little courage - "I've had darned little thanks for it."

"You think I believe the mill gave five thousand dollars in watches last Christmas? To-morrow I go, with this to Mr. Clayton Spencer, not to that degenerate son of his, and I ask him. Then I shall know."

He turned, as if about to leave her, but the alternative he offered her was too terrible.

"Father!" she said. "I'll tell you the truth. I bought it myself."

"With what money?"

"I had a raise. I didn't tell you. I had a raise of five dollars a week. I'm paying for it myself. Honest to heaven, that's right, father."

"So - you have had a raise, and you have not told me?"

"I give all the rest to you. What do I get out of all my hard work? Just a place to live. No clothes. No fun. No anything. All the other girls have a good time now and then, but I'm just like a prisoner. You take all I earn, and I get - the devil."

Her voice rose to a terrified squeal. Behind her she heard the slovenly servant creaking down the stairs. As Herman moved toward her she screamed.

"Katie!" she called. "Quick. Help!"

But Herman had caught her by the shoulder and was dragging her toward a corner, where there hung a leather strap.

Katie, peering round the door of the enclosed staircase, saw him raise the strap, and Anna's white face upraised piteously.

"For God's sake, father."

The strap descended. Even after Katie had rushed up the stairs and locked herself in the room, she could hear, above Anna's cries, the thud of the strap, relentless, terrible, lusty with cruelty.

Herman went to church the next morning. Lying in her bed, too sore and bruised to move, Anna heard him carefully polishing his boots on the side porch, heard him throw away the water after he had shaved, heard at last the slam of the gate as he started, upright in his Sunday clothes, for church.

Only when he had reached the end of the street, and Katie could see him picking his way down the blackened hill, did she venture up with a cup of coffee. Anna had to unlock her door to admit her, to remove a further barricade of chairs. When Katie saw her she almost dropped the cup.

"You poor little rat," she said compassionately. "Gee! He was crazy. I never saw such a face. Gee!"

Anna said nothing. She dropped on the side of the bed and took the coffee, drinking gingerly through a lip swollen and cut.

"I'm going to leave," Katie went on. "It'll be my time next. If he tries any tricks on me I'll have the law on him. He's a beast; that's what he is."

"Katie," Anna said, "if I leave can you get my clothes to me? I'll carry all I can."

"He'd take the strap to me."

"Well, if you're leaving anyhow, you can put some of my things in your trunk."

"Good and right you are to get out," Katie agreed. "Sure I'll do it. Where do you think you'll go?"

"I thought last night I'd jump in the river. I've changed my mind, though. I'll pay him back, and not the way he expects."

"Give it to him good," assented Katie. "I'd have liked to slip some of that Paris green of his in his coffee this morning. And now he's off for church, the old hypocrite!"

To Katie's curious inquiries as to the cause of the beating Anna was now too committal.

"I held out some money on him," was all she said.

Katie regarded her with a mixture of awe and admiration.

"You've got your nerve," she said. "I wonder he didn't kill you. What's yours is his and what's his is his own!"

But Anna could not leave that morning. She lay in her bed, cold compresses on