aid, "I'm glad that you have a sweetheart--you didn't deny
it, you know, the other night! He'll take you away from the slums, I
reckon, before very long! He'll take you away before you've been hurt!"

Rose-Marie, looking straight ahead, did not answer. But the weight of
deceit upon her soul made her feel very wicked.

Yes, the weight of deceit upon her soul made her feel very wicked! But
later that night, after the club members had gone home, dizzy with many
honours, it was not the weight of deceit that troubled her. As she crept
into her narrow little bed she was all at once very sorry for herself;
and for a vanished dream! Dr. Blanchard could be so nice--when he wanted
to. He could be so understanding, so sympathetic! There on the bench in
the rear of the room they had been, for a moment, very close together.
She had nearly come back, during their few minutes of really intimate
conversation, to her first glowing impression of him. And then he had
changed so suddenly--had so abruptly thrust aside the little house of
friendship that they had begun to build. "If he would only let me," she
told herself, "I could teach him to like the things I like. If he would
only understand I could explain just how I feel about people. If he would
only give me a chance I could keep him from being so lonely."

Rose-Marie had known few men. The boys of her own town she scarcely
regarded as men--they were old playmates, that was all. No one stood out
from the other, they were strikingly similar. They had carried her books
to school, had shared apples with her, had played escort to
prayer-meetings and to parties. But none of them had ever stirred her
imagination as the Young Doctor stirred it.

There in the dark Rose-Marie felt herself blushing. Could it be possible
that she felt an interest in the Young Doctor, an interest that was more
than a casual interest? Could it be possible that she liked a man who
showed plainly, upon every possible occasion, that he did not like her?
Could it be possible that a person who read sensational stories, who did
not believe in the greatness of human nature, who refused to go to
church, attracted her?

Of a sudden she had flounced out of bed; had shrugged her slender little
body into a shapeless wrapper--the parting gift of a girl friend--from
which her small flushed face seemed to grow like some delicate spring
blossom. With hurried steps--she might almost have been running away from
something--she c