This course of innuendo, suggestion, and cross-questioning, pursued by day and night, through work and rest, in strength and weariness, ended one afternoon when another boarder had departed, taking three towels with him, as is the custom of departing boarders, and when, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Turner secretly felt that she could no longer afford a maid. "Where," she asked, meeting Violet on the stairs, "is them towels as was in Mr. Urner's room?" "I don't know," said Violet. "Well, they was there this morning, before lunch--I seen 'em myself--and now they hain't." Violet recalled that Mr. Urner had been to his room in the meantime and had then left forever. "Hum," said Mrs. Turner; "but you see the soap's gone too." For some reason ungiven, the landlady plainly thought that the theft of the soap--perhaps because of Mr. Urner's personal habits--was proof positive that Mr. Urner could not be the thief, and that Violet must be. The girl was not in love with her work, but she was immensely comforted by the shelter it gave her, and she now throbbed with terror at the thought of its loss. "I didn't take it, Mrs. Turner," she pleaded, "honest, I didn't." "I didn't just _say_ you did," replied the landlady; "but you can't blame me if I think things, the way you come here.--Where'd you say your home was?" The question was hurled so suddenly, and was accompanied by such an uncommonly strong glare from the penetrating spectacles, that Violet's slow brain tottered. For the life of her, she could not think of the city that she had formerly mentioned. "Well"--Mrs. Turner's foot beat sharply on the floor--"that ain't a hard question, is it? Where'd you say you come from?" In desperation, the girl named the first city that her lips recalled. "Philadelphia," she murmured, and realized at once that this was wrong and that her tormentor knew it. "You said Pittsburgh last week, miss," clicked Mrs. Turner. She raised a knotty finger. "Now I ain't sayin' you took that soap nor yet them towels--mind you that--but I am sayin' you lied. Me and liars ain't good company: you'd better go." The tears came to Violet's eyes. They overflowed and she broke down. In three short sentences she had confessed enough for Mrs. Turner to guess the entire truth, and had cast herself upon the woman's mercy. But Mrs. Alberta Turner's straight bosom was no pillow for the unfortunate. Rugged as it was, it was no rock of safety. She drew her black figure to its greatest height; she called upon all her religious experience for backing, and upon all her study of the Bible for phraseology, and she launched at the girl a sermon the burden of which was that, as she would have been glad to receive into her care a woman that had erred and had repented, so she was in Christian duty bound to cast forth and utterly repudiate one that had shown herself far from repentance by seeking employment without first baring her inmost soul.