But Mary never doubted her justice, and never regretted it. One only thought troubled her: she was afraid that, by telling Max, she might have given him a warning sufficiently early to defeat her own ultimate purpose. It was a large part of her plan that he should know whose hand had struck him, and, for a man in his business, the only way in which she could make that knowledge certain was the way that she had followed. Yet what if he were in time to profit by her information? What if, even were he too late, he should guard and doctor himself with proper caution? She turned the questions over and over in her mind, but she had always to end in the faith that the worst had happened. Sometimes, in the moments of exhaustion from the mad round of these inquiries, she reverted for relief to matters that touched her less nearly, and endeavored to occupy herself with the affairs of others. She thought of Dyker, and without resentment. She knew that he would use her written retraction to regain Marian's confidence, and she hoped that he would be successful. Again she fell to speculating upon the fate of Carrie Berkowicz and to wondering what had become of Katie. But upon her own past and present she did not permit herself to dwell, and always, with the certainty of a machine, her brain recurred to Max and her vengeance on him. On the third evening, however, her landlady, entering with supper, reminded her, without mincing matters, that the rent was due, and Mary recalled that her little stock of money was exhausted. "Can you wait till to-morrow morning, Mrs. Foote?" she asked. Mrs. Foote was an ample woman, with round cheeks and robust frame, whose only dissipations were an over-indulgence in ritualism, babies, and the hospital. She had a high-church cleric to whom she confessed the sins of her neighbors; a wraithlike husband whose sole occupation appeared to be that indispensable to the regular increase of her family--and whom she would otherwise have failed altogether to tolerate--and such a passion for being ill that she could never quite believe in the illnesses of others. "I can wait just that long, Miss Morton," she said; "but I'm sufferin' so from rheumatism in my fingers that I just know my old gastric trouble is comin' on ag'in, an' that'll mean another of them hospital-bills." Mary raised her aching head. "You won't have to wait any longer," she answered. "I'm glad of it, Miss Morton," responded Mrs. Foote, "for there was a young lady lookin' at this room to-day an' she offered me a dollar more a week for it, an' I wouldn't like to lose you." "You won't lose me," said Mary, to whom even sustained conversation was physical pain. "I'm goin' out to-night, an' I'll have plenty for you by the mornin'." "You're sure?" asked the landlady. "Of course I am. It'd be a pity if I couldn't earn that much." Mrs. Foote looked at Mary's face and seemed to doubt the foundation for her assurance.