For he had stayed on with Spike through the evening, and in a dearth of custom Spike, back of the bar, had sung in a whining tenor, "For she's only a bird in a gilded cage----" That was it.

She had discarded him because he was penniless--had sold herself to be a rich man's toy.

She would pay for it in bitter anguish.
"Only a bird in a gilded cage," sang Spike again.

An encore had been urged.
At noon the following day Winona Penniman, a copy of the _Advance_ before her, sat at the Penniman luncheon table staring dully into a dish of cold rice pudding.

She had read again and again the unbelievable item.