"Then here," said Harry quietly, as he wrote a few words on a sheet of blank paper and laid it on the desk; "here is my resignation as president of your Electrical Company, to take effect _now_." "Harry!" protested his father. "I'll get my personal things together at once," went on the young man, securing his hat from the rack. "This has gone far enough," rasped John Boland, springing to his feet. "I'll show this Mary Randall there's one she can't scare." He paced nervously up and down the office, pausing finally beside his desk. "Miss Masters, take an open letter from me to the newspapers." He did not notice the actions of the stenographer as he dictated: "I, John Boland, am a business man. I stand on my record. I defy Miss Mary Randall--" In pausing to formulate his thoughts, he became conscious that Miss Masters had not been taking his dictation; that she had laid an envelope on his desk directly in front of where he usually sat, and that she was putting on her hat. "Here, hold on!" he cried peremptorily. "What does this mean, Miss Masters?" "It means, Mr. Boland," she replied quietly, as she adjusted a hat pin, "that I have resigned. Good day." When she started to leave Boland called out to her in amazement: "Here--wait--why do you resign?" "That letter on the desk will tell you," she said as she moved through the doorway. "Good day." John Boland picked up the letter and opened it. He was dazed as he read aloud: "I refuse to lend my aid to the owners of vice property. Mary Randall." Boland stared into space, while Harry exclaimed: "Then Miss Masters is Mary Randall!" "Murder, alive!" yelled Grogan. He slid down in his chair and attempted to conceal himself beneath the desk. John Boland's hands trembled as he clutched the letter. "Mary Randall," he said, still dazed. "By all that's holy! That girl Mary Randall!" CHAPTER XVII THE CAFE SINISTER The Cafe Sinister stands like a gilded temple at the entrance to Chicago's tenderloin. The fact is significant. The management, the appearance, the policy, if you please, of the place are all in keeping with this one potent circumstance of location. The Cafe Sinister beckons to the passerby. It appeals to him subtly with its music, its cheap splendor, its false gayety. To the sophisticated its allurements are those of the scarlet woman, to the innocent its voice is the voice of Joy. Two pillars of carved glass, lighted from the inside by electricity, stand at the portal. Within a huge room, filled with drinking tables sparkling with many lights, gleaming and garish, suggests without revealing the enticements of evil.