A slow, warm breeze brought through the curtainless window a disagreeable odour, sour and fetid. The apartment was at the back of the building; the odour came from a littered courtyard, a conglomeration of wet ashes, neglected garbage, little filthy pools, warmed into activity by the sun, high enough now to touch them. He could see the picture without looking—and that odour struck him as excruciatingly appropriate to this woman's soul.

"Berne Webster killed my daughter," she said evenly, hands moveless in her lap. "There are several reasons for my saying so. Mildred was his stenographer for eight months, and he fell in love with her—that was the way he described his feeling, and intention, toward her. The usual thing happened; he discharged her two weeks ago.

"He wants to marry money. You know about that, I take it—Miss Sloane, daughter of A. B. Sloane, Sloanehurst, where s. . . Read More