He struck his own name off the company's books. And so during these dark, dreary winter evenings, sometimes wet and raw, sometimes bitterly cold, quitting when she could her desk at five o'clock, yet often kept pegging away until later, Miss Jeannette Wallen walked those crowded blocks below the State Street bridge and all the many, many squares that interposed between her and her little home. As the days began to lengthen and the cold to strengthen, she sometimes reached there well-nigh frozen and exhausted, to be welcomed and regaled not so much with hot tea and loving words as by wailing infants and complaining women,--Mart being, as usual, away at some soul-stirring meeting, where much was said about the wrongs of the workingman, but nothing thought of those of the workingwoman. And then came an adventure. Many a time had she been accosted by street prowlers, and sometimes followed, but her rule had been to make no reply, simply to walk straight on, and look neither to the right nor to the left. One dark evening in early January she had been working late, and it was nearly seven as she passed the river. A few blocks farther north she overtook a man whose unsteady gait did not prevent his quickening speed and striving in turn to overtake her. Finding him at her heels and his detaining hand actually on her arm, her nerve gave way, and she took to flight, her pursuer following. Half a block ahead and around a corner was the apartment-house where she had acquaintances, and into the hall-way Jenny bolted, hoping to turn and slam the door into the blackguard's face, but, to her horror, the heavy portal refused to swing. Despairingly she touched the electric button, then turned pluckily to face her pursuer and warn him off. But the fellow was daft with drink, and, with maudlin exultation, he sprang after her and strove to seize her in his arms, laughing at her frantic blows. Then the inner door suddenly opened and tumbled them both into the hall and into the arms of a tall, dark, heavily-moustached man who looked amazed one second and enlightened the next, for he seated the half-fainting girl in a chair, kicked the intruder into the gutter, and then sprang back into the hall in time to catch her as she was almost toppling over on the tiled floor. This brought her the second time within the clasp of a muscular arm, and then she gasped an inquiry for her friends, and he sent the staring hall-boy to ask if they were in, and stepped into his own room and brought forth a glass of wine, which he calmly ordered her to sip, and then, seeing her heart was fluttering like a terrified bird's, he spoke gently and soothingly, and little by little she had regained some composure when the boy came down from the fourth floor to say the ladies were out.