"Then," replied Katie, "I'll tell you. The only one thing I can think of that'd get you to let me off is the only one you can think of yourself--_an' that's the one I won't do!_" Her voice, which had begun so softly, ended in a loud note. Her hands, which had been open, clinched. Her body, which had been relaxed, stiffened. Mr. Porter sprang back from her, looked at her with hot fright in his usually cool eyes, and then shrank as far away as his desk-armchair would permit. "Miss Flanagan," he spluttered, "not so loud, please! You will alarm the store." "I wish I could alarm it!" said Katie. "But what--what--I don't understand----" "Yes, you do understand, all right, all right, Mr. Porter. I know what you want; I've known it all along, an' if I hadn't liked to make a fool of you, I'd have told you long since what I tell you now: _You won't get it!_" If it were possible for Mr. Porter to grow whiter than his habit, he grew whiter then. "I shall--I shall ring for assistance!" he protested. "No you won't; you won't dare; you'll sit there, an' write me out a recommendation an' an order for me pay--if your hand ain't shakin' too much, an' if it is, I'll write it for you." And he did write it. After one look at her, he wrote it without a word, and "without," as Katie carefully stipulated, "any dockin' for the last offense," and as she left him she delivered one Parthian bolt. "Remember me to the girl you start after in the mornin'," she said; "an' when you go home to-night, just give me grandmother-mother-aunt-cousin's best regards to your grown-up great-grandchildren." The taste in which her revolution expressed itself may have been as doubtful as the courage that inspired it was certain; but, had Mr. Porter been able to see into her mind as she hurried homeward, he would have been gratified at what he found there. The excitement had gone, and with it the bravery. She had preserved her individual ideals, but she now realized at what a cost she had preserved them. Against masculine attack it was sometimes inspiriting to defend herself, but to the slow and continuous advance of penury she well knew that, at last, she must succumb. She passed her ugly little parish-church, and, remembering that she had missed her last confession, entered its forbidding doors. The swinging portal closed softly behind her. It shut out the glare of the day, it shut out the noises of the street, and it seemed to shut out the entire malicious power of the world. Inside the cruel sunshine became kindly shade and comforting candle-light; the only sound was the occasional footfall of an unseen suppliant, and on the distant high altar, shimmering and white at the end of the long perspective of the empty aisle, there rested the power she believed more powerful than all on earth beside.