Her business accomplished, Miss Saunders went home. She lived in one of those mid-town blocks of old brownstone houses divided into flats. The flats were of the variety known as “push button” and “walk up,” but she pushed no button as she knew hers would be tenantless. Letting herself in with a latchkey she ascended the two flights at a rapid run, unlocked her door and entered upon the hot empty quietude of her own domain. The blinds in the parlor were lowered as she had left them. She pulled one up with a nervous jerk, threw her hat on a chair, and falling upon the divan opened the paper that she had carried since she left the Grand Central Station. The news of the day evidently had no interest for her. She folded the pages back at the personal column and settled over it, bent, motionless, her eyes traveling down its length. Suddenly they stopped, focussed on a paragraph. She rose and with swift, tiptoe tread went into the hall and tried the front door. Coming back she took a pad and pencil from the desk, drew a small table up to the divan, spread the newspaper on it, and copied the paragraph on to the pad. It ran as follows: “Sister Carrie: Edmund stoney broke but Albert able to help him. Think we ought to chip in. Can a date be arranged for discussing his affairs? Sam and Lewis.” She studied it for some time, the pencil suspended. Then it descended, crossing out letter after letter, till three words remained--“Edmunton, Alberta, Canada.” The signature she guessed as the name he went by. She burned the written paper, grinding it to powder in the ash-tray. The newspaper she threw into the waste-basket where Luella, the mulatto woman who “did up” for her, would find it in the morning. She felt certain Luella was paid to watch her, that the woman had a pass-key to the mail-box and every torn scrap of letter or note was foraged for and handed on. But she had continued to keep the evil-eyed creature, fearful that her dismissal would make them more than ever wary, strengthen their suspicion that Sybil Saunders was in communication with her lover.