"In the rear--I'll show ye," and she led the way to a precipitous flight of steps. "Ye go down, an' 'long 's far 's ye kin, thin turn t' th' right an' knock," she said, and disappeared in the mist. Groping his way, the man reached the end of a long passage between two tenements and knocked at a rear door. A woman opened it. "Th' ditictive," she murmured, and let him in. The kitchen was stifling close; a fire raged to the brim of the big, heavily nickeled stove which had cost the Caseys so dear in instalments and in worry. Casey had been working for two weeks, and the bin outside the kitchen door had a ton of soft coal in it. In a bracket above the sink was a lamp whose tin reflector, instead of diffusing the light rays, seemed to concentrate them, like a feeble searchlight, so that the corners of the kitchen were all in gloom, and half-lost in gloom were the forms of the Caseys, whose pallid faces showed sharply against the dusk. "Had any word?" said the detective, addressing Mrs. Casey. To the relief of the parents and the bitter disappointment of the children, he was a plain-clothes man. "Niver a worrd." The detective consulted a memorandum. "You say she left home Monday morning, just as usual, to go to work?" "Yissir; she wint down th' alley here hummin' a chune an' as gay as a burrd." "And you don't think she intended to stay away?" Mary Casey's eyes flashed. "If I t'ought a gyurl o' mine could walk out an' l'ave me, intintional, wid a chune on her lyin' lips, I'd not ask ye t' be findin' her," she said. "Did she have a beau?" "None thot I iver see. She used t' be after talkin', sometoimes, 'bout gran' fellies she'd see downtown, an' I always sez to her, 'You mark me worrds an' l'ave gran' fellies be. They don't mane no good t' th' loikes o' you,' I sez. 'Thim fellies spinds ivry cint they git on their gold watches an' swallie-tails, an' whin they marry they got t' marry a gyurl wid money t' support thim. Whin yer old enough t' take up wid anny wan,' I sez, 'yer pa or yer Uncle Tim'll introjuce ye t' some nice young lab'rin' man wid a good trade an' ambition t' git on, an' you work fer him whoile he works fer you.' 'Ah, ye don' know nothin' 'bout it,' she'd say t' me, an' 'Don't you belave thot,' I'd say t' her, 'I'm nothin' t' look at, an' I ain't got mooch style about me, but I got some knowlidge o' min,' I sez, 'an' they're a bad lot, aven th' bist o' thim. An' you git it out o' yer hid,' I sez, 'thot anny gran' felly's goin' t' marry you, or th' loikes o' you. Ye may rade such foolishness in yer story paapers er see it at yer theayters, but ye kin mark me worrds thot love is fer tony folks thot kin afford it, an' not fer th' loikes o' you an' me.'"