y I've been thinking about you--wanting you. Sometimes I can
bring people that way."

"And I have wanted you! Betty, may I stay--to-night?"

"Why, yes, dear. Stay until you want to go home. I've been pulling
myself together; I'm almost ready to go back to Brace. Come in!
Why--what is it, dear? Come, let me take off your things! There! Now lie
back in the chair and tell Betty all about it."

"No, no! Betty, I want to sit so--at your feet. I want to learn all that
you can teach me. You have never had your eyes blinded--or you would
know how the light hurts."

"Well, then. Put your blessed, tired head on my knee. You're my little
girl to-night, Lyn, and I am your--mother."

For a moment Lynda cried as a child might who had reached safety at
last. Betty did not check or soothe the heavy sobs--she waited. She knew
Lynda was saved from whatever had troubled her. It was only the telling
of it now. And presently the dark head was lifted.

"Betty, it is Con and I!"

"Yes, dear."

"I've loved him all my life; and I believe--I _know_--he loved me! Women
do not make mistakes about the real thing."

"Never, Lyn, never."

"Betty, once when I thought Con had wronged me, I wanted to come to
you--I almost did--but I couldn't then! Now that I am sure I have
wronged him, it is easy to come to you--you are so understanding!" The
radiance of Lynda's face rather startled Betty. Abandon, relief,
glorified it until it seemed a new--a far more beautiful face.

"All my life, Betty, I've been controlling myself--conquering myself. I
got started that way and--and I've kept on. I've never done anything
without considering and weighing; but now I'm going to fling myself into
love and life and--pay whatever there is to pay."

"Why, Lyn, dear, please go slower." Betty pressed her face to the head
at her knee.

"Betty, there was another love in Con's life--one that should never
have been there."

This almost took Betty's breath. She was thankful Lynda's eyes were
turned away; but by some strange magic the words raised Truedale in
Betty's very human imagination.

"I sometimes think the--the thing that happened--was the working out of
an old inheritance; Con has overcome much, but that caught him in its
snare. He was ready to let it ruin his whole future. He would never have
flinched--never have known, or admitted if he had known--what he had
foregone. But the thing was taken out of his control altogether--the
girl married another man