So gradually Fair gave up the hope of finding Sadie again. She saw that Waverley Osborne, her old admirer, whom she had snubbed so cruelly, was still a clerk in the warerooms under the factory, but she did not dream that he could have led her straight to Sadie, who was now his wife. In all her life, she would never forget the sick horror of that day when Prince Gonzaga came to the factory to search for her. She believed that somehow she had been betrayed, and that now, after all her struggles, she was about to fall into the spider’s net. It was with difficulty that she repressed a cry of despair and bowed her head over her machine, expecting every moment that a heavy hand would fall upon her shoulder and a triumphant voice exclaim: “I have found you at last!” But little by little, her fear wore off. There was nothing about the shabby little widow, in her rusty black dress and disfiguring cap, to suggest beautiful, dainty Fairfax Fielding. He had only come to inquire if she was there, and after he had told his story to the forewoman he went away and left her undiscovered and jubilant at her narrow escape. Then, indeed, Fair heard her own name enough, for the girls talked nothing else for many days but Prince Gonzaga and his missing bride, and they declared that it was the strangest thing in the world that she should hide herself from him now that he was so rich and grand. But Mrs. Jones always took her part. “I think Fair was quite right in running away, for there is no doubt that he frightened poor, foolish Mrs. Fielding to death,” she said. The months wore on, and Fair began to feel easy again, although she knew that Prince Gonzaga was yet in New York. She heard the rumor among the working girls that he had a private detective in his employ, but she did not credit the story. She believed it was simply gossip, for she had found out through the daily papers that he was quite a favorite in society, and she hoped that he would forget her amid the fascinations of the world. There was one thing that she noticed, and for which she found it easy to account in her own mind: Belva Platt, since the prince’s appearance at the factory, had blossomed out in new finery and jewelry, whose value was so far above her wages that it created much unpleasant gossip among her companions, the honest working girls. Belva did not care for their gossip. In fact, she enjoyed it. She liked to flaunt her silk dress and diamond earrings in the face of Waverley Osborne, whom she hated now with all the venom of a mean nature. “I’ve a rich beau. He gives me all these things, and he is going to marry me soon,” she said boastingly to Mrs. Jones, who answered coldly: “I hope he will, for such things are not becoming to a working girl.” Belva tossed her head, and declared, in an audible aside to her best friend, that it was all envy. Anybody had a right to wear fine things who could get them.