there was something vividly impressive about her just now, though
her pallid, prematurely mature face and the thin figure in the
regulation black dress and white apron showed ordinarily only
insignificant. "Tell me now," she repeated, with a monotonous
emphasis that somehow moved Sarah to obedience against her will,
greatly to her own surprise.

"They sent her to prison for three years," she answered, sharply.

"Three years?" The salesgirl had repeated the words in a tone
that was indefinable, yet a tone vehement in its incredulous
questioning. "Three years?" she said again, as one refusing to
believe.

"Yes," Sarah said, impressed by the girl's earnestness; "three
years."

"Good God!" There was no irreverence in the exclamation that
broke from the girl's lips. Instead, only a tense horror that
touched to the roots of emotion.

Sarah regarded this display of feeling on the part of the young
woman before her with an increasing astonishment. It was not in
her own nature to be demonstrative, and such strong expression of
emotion as this she deemed rather suspicious. She recalled, in
addition, the fact that his was not the first time that Helen
Morris had shown a particular interest in the fate of Mary
Turner. Sarah wondered why.

"Say," she demanded, with the directness habitual to her, "why