“You could walk away with it, Nell. But we need you for the advertising, and besides that job would take you away from home all the time. And of course somebody has to be here for the children.” “No, I’d never consent to leave the children,” said Nell. “I didn’t really mean it. I was just thinking what fun it would be if there were two of me.” “I wish there were!” said her husband, fervently. “On second thought, I’m not at all sure _I_ do!” she said, laughing. They went back now into the living-room and sank down in armchairs, Nell with a cigarette. She had looked first to be sure that the curtains were down so that she was not visible from the street. “No,” said Jerome, “we’d better not consider either of us taking it. It would be a waste not to stick to the lines we’ve been trained for. I suppose it’s just a pipe dream to think I can find exactly the right person. But you can bet your last cent I won’t tie up for any long contract to anybody who isn’t exactly the right person. I’ve got a hunch that some day the right one will walk into the store and let me lasso her. And I’ve faith enough in my hunch to believe I’ll know her when I see her, and....” “Isn’t that the ’phone?” asked his wife, suspending her cigarette in mid-air. “Oh, Lord! I hope not, just when we’re settled for the evening!” cried her husband. “I’ll answer it,” she said, going out into the hall. When she came back she looked grave. “Oh, Jerome, what do you think? That Mr. Knapp has just had a terrible accident, they say. Fell off a roof and killed himself.” Jerome’s impulse was to cry out blamingly, “Isn’t that just like him! Why couldn’t he choose some other time!” But he repressed this decently. “Well, what do you think we ought to do?” he asked Nell. He was frightfully tired. The idea of stirring out of his chair appalled him. But he wanted to establish a tradition in the town that the store looked after its employees like a father. She hesitated. “Let me run upstairs and start the children to bed. I believe we’d better go around to their house and offer to do anything we can to help out.” Chapter 8 As they stepped quickly along in the dark, they tried to piece together the chronology of the late afternoon for Knapp and decided that this tragic ending to his feeble life must have come even before he could have seen his wife to tell her of his dismissal from the store. “I’m so glad of _that_!” said Nell Willing, softly. “Now she need never know.” Her husband gave a hearty inward assent. It was the devil anyhow to be so intimately concerned in other people’s lives as an employer was.