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to dealing with women. She heard him say solicitously, "You look ill, Miss Nessie."

"Yes—I'm not well."

"Perhaps you'd better go home for the day."

Nessie realized her own weak, shaken condition and agreed with a nod. There was a pause, the merchant glanced out the door, then back at her.

"And, Miss Nessie, you do look run-down, have been for several days. I believe a little vacation would do you good, chance to pick yourself up." He reached in his pocket and drew out a check book. "Why not let me give you a check for the rest of your pay this month and let you recuperate?" He smiled a strained, mechanical smile.

Nessie's face went very white; she moistened her dry lips and whispered, Yes, she would appreciate it.

Mr. Baxter produced his fountain pen and made out the check. On the notation line he wrote, "Payment of salary in full."

Nessie could feel her pulse in her neck, in her temples, her head was aching. Through her dry mouth she whispered, "Thank you."

The merchant drew a silent breath himself as if he had completed a disagreeable task. As he handed Nessie the check, he looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time, and said quite ingenuously and with a remote sympathy, "You really do look sick, Miss Nessie—I'll send you home in the delivery wagon."

With a sinking feeling Nessie could see herself, more conspicuous than ever, being sent home in a delivery wagon, but she was too weak to walk. She went to the front of the store and shrank inside the recessed door of the Grand until the wagon came. Once a wild notion struck her to ask Archie, the delivery boy, to take her to the home of Mrs. Biggers. It seemed to Nessie that unless she could find some woman to whom she could unburden her grief and fear, some real friend upon whom she could rest in this nightmarish hour, she must go mad indeed.