"
"And what time does he usually come home in the evening?"
"Don't know. After I've gone, I guess."
Edith hesitated whether she should leave a card or a note, but she
decided not to do either, and ordered the cabman to take her to Pearl
Street, to the house of Fletcher & Co.
Mr. Fletcher, the senior partner, was her cousin, the son of her father's
elder brother, and a man now past sixty years. Circumstances had carried
the families apart socially since the death of her father and his
brother, but they were on the most friendly terms, and the ties of blood
were not in any way weakened. Indeed, although Edith had seen Gilbert
Fletcher only a few times since her marriage, she felt that she could go
to him any time if she were in trouble, with the certainty of sympathy
and help. He had the reputation of the old-fashioned New York merchants,
to whom her father belonged, for integrity and conservatism.
It was to him that she went now. The great shop, or wholesale warehouse
rather, into which she entered from the narrow and cart-encumbered
street, showed her at once the nature of the business of Fletcher & Co.
It was something in the twine and cordage way. There were everywhere
great coils of ropes and bales of twine, and the dark rooms had a tarry
smell.
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