For a moment Post-office Inspector Owen Sheridan stood staring stupidly at Dallas Worthington’s landlady, appalled by the significance of what the woman had just told him. "Gone!" he exclaimed dazedly, at last, "and with her suit case. But didn’t she say where she was going, Mrs. O’Brien? Didn’t she tell you when she’d be back?" "No, sir; not a word. She rushed out of the house like a creature possessed. In all the while I’ve known her I’ve never seen her in such a state. She’s usually such a calm, dignified young woman, as well you know, Mr. Sheridan. If it wasn’t that she left her trunk behind her, and that she don’t impress me as bein’ at all that kind of person, I’d be inclined to think that she’d skipped to beat her board bill; she owes me three weeks’ board. I’ve been gettin’ nothing but excuses and promises from her lately." This was another staggerer for Owen. Dallas in need of money! He knew that the girl’s position as stenographer in Mr. Sammis’ real-estate office did not command a very big salary; but she had never once hinted to Owen that she was not earning enough to pay her expenses. "Poor little girl," he mused tenderly. "She’s evidently been having a hard struggle to get along, and I never guessed it. But, thank goodness, she won’t have to struggle any longer. There’s nothing to prevent us from getting married now, and she can throw up that job as soon as she’s ready." He was smiling to himself at the pleasant picture his mind drew of a cozy little flat, with Dallas, trim and dainty, pouring coffee at a breakfast table laid for two, when the strident voice of the boarding-house woman brought him sharply to his senses: "Why a young woman that’s earning twelve dollars a week--which I understand is her salary, Mr. Sheridan--shouldn’t be able to keep out of debt when her board bill’s only eight, is something that I fail to understand. It isn’t as if she was a fancy dresser. She’s always neat, of course, but she never wears expensive clothes, and I can’t see why she should have to get three weeks behind in her board, when----” Owen hastily took out his wallet, and withdrew twenty-four dollars. "When Miss Worthington comes back, you can tell her that her board bill has been paid, without telling her who paid it, Mrs. O’Brien," he said, handing her the money. "And please don’t mention anything to anybody about her having been in arrears." "I won’t, sir," the landlady assured him. "It ain’t no disgrace, of course, to be hard up; but, at the same time, I know it ain’t a subject that people like to have talked about. I’ll be very careful not to mention it, Mr. Sheridan." "I sincerely hope that she’ll keep that promise," said Owen to himself, as he left the house. "Until this pink-envelope mystery is cleared up, it would be very awkward to have it become known that Dallas was so financially embarrassed that she couldn’t pay her board bill."