To ask his aid would be to reveal, not alone her presence in America, but the series of undignified experiences which had involved her deeper and deeper.

That humiliation was unthinkable.
But on Thursday, locked in their room, they spoke of the matter openly.
"Please, ma'am," said Matilda, who had been maturing a plan, "you might make out a check to me, dated last week, before you sailed, and I could get it cashed.

They'd think it was for back wages." "I told you last Friday, when everything happened, that I had drawn out my balance." "But your bank won't mind your overdrawing for a hundred or two," urged Matilda.
"That," said Mrs.De Peyster with an air of noble principle, "is a thing I will not do." Matilda knew nothing of the secret of Mrs.De Peyster's exhausted credit at her bank.
"My own money," Matilda remarked plaintively, "is all in a savings bank.

I have to give thirty days' notice before I can draw a penny." There was a brief silence.

Matilda's gaze, which had several times wandered to a point a few inches below Mrs.De Peyster's throat, now fixed themselves upon this spot.