With every word uttered, McGuire Ellis’s forebodings had grown darker.  That Hal Surtaine, carried away by the girl’s vividness and allure, might have involved himself in a liaison with her was credible enough.  He recalled the episode of the road-house, on that stormy spring day.  That Hal would have deserted her afterward, Ellis could not believe.  And yet—­and yet—­why otherwise should she come with the marks of fierce misery in her face, demanding an interview at this time?  On one point Ellis’s mind was swiftly made up:  she should not see Hal.

“Miss Neal,” he said quietly, “you can sit there all night, but you can’t see the Boss unless you tell me your errand.”

The girl rose, slowly.  “Oh, I guess you all stand together here,” she said.  “Well, remember:  I gave him his chance to square himself.”

When Hal came up from a visit to the new press half an hour later, Ellis had decided to say nothing of the call.  Later, he must have it out with his employer, for the sake of both of them and of the “Clarion.”  But it was an ordeal which he was glad to postpone.  Nothing more, he judged, was to be feared that night, from Milly Neal; he could safely sleep over the problem.  Having a certain sufficient religion of his own, McGuire Ellis still believes that a merciful Heaven forgives us our sins; but, looking back on that evening’s decision, he sometimes wonders whether it ever fully pardons our mistakes.

While he sat reading proof on the status of a flickering foreign war, the Hardscrabbler’s daughter, in a quiet back room farther down the block, slowly sipped more gin; and gin is fire and fury to the Hardscrabbler blood.

At eleven o’clock that evening, Dr. Surtaine, returning to that massive hybrid of architecture which he called home, found Milly Neal waiting in his study.

“Well, Milly:  what’s up?” he asked, cheerfully enough in tone, but with a sinking heart.

“I want to know what you’re going to do for me?”

“Something wrong?”

“You’ve got a right to know.  I’m in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The kind you make money out of with your Relief Pills.”

“Milly!  Milly!” cried the quack, in honest distress.  “I wouldn’t have believed it of you.”

“Yes:  it’s terrible, isn’t it!” mocked the girl.  “What are you going to do about it?  It’s up to you.”

“Up to me?” queried the Doctor, bracing himself for what was coming.

“Don’t you promise, with your Relief Pills to get women out of trouble?”

Dr. Surtaine’s breath came a little easier.  Perhaps she was not going to force the issue upon him by mentioning Hal.  If this were diplomacy, he would play the game.

“Certainly not!  Certainly not!” he protested with a scandalized air.  “We’ve never made such a claim.  It would be against the law.”

“Look at this.”  She held up in her left hand a clipping, showing a line-cut of a smiling woman, over the caption “A Happy Lady”; and announcing in wide print, “Every form of suppression relieved.  The most obstinate cases yield at once.  Thousands of once desperate women bless the name of Relief Pills.”