h the rose bushes, a white,
graceful, flitting figure. She vanished. Presently she came bounding
into sight again and handed Lane a bundle of notes.

"Did you keep back any?" he asked, as he tried to find pockets enough
for the collection.

"Not one."

"I'll go home and read them all. Then I'll meet you here to-night at
eight o'clock."

"But--I've a date. I'll break it, though."

"With whom?"

"Gail and a couple of boys--kids."

"Does your mother know?"

"I'd tell her about Gail, but that's all. We go for ice cream--then
meet the boys and take a walk."

"Bessy, you're not going to do that sort of thing any more."

Lane bent over her, took her hands. She instinctively rebelled, then
slowly yielded.

"That's part of our bargain?" she asked.

"Yes, it certainly is."

"Then I won't ever again."

"Bessy, I trust you. Do you understand me?"

"I--I think so."

"Daren, will you care for me--if I'm--if I do as you want me to?"

"I do now," he replied. "And I'll care a thousand times more when you
prove you're really above these things.... Bessy, I'll care for you as
a friend--as a brother--as a man who has almost lost his faith and who
sees in you some hope to keep his spirit alive. I'm unhappy, Bessy.
Perhaps you can help me--make me a little happier.... Anyway, I trust
you. Good-bye now. To-night, at eight o'clock."

Lane went home to his room and earnestly gave himself up to the
perusal of the writings Bessy Bell had given him. He experienced
shocks of pain and wonder, between which he had to laugh. All the
fiendish wit of youthful ingenuity flashed forth from this verse.
There was a parody on Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break," featuring
Colonel Pepper's famous and deplorable habit. Miss Hill came in for a
great share of opprobrium. One verse, if it had ever come under the
eyes of the good schoolteacher, would have broken her heart.

Lane read all Bessy's verses, and then the packet of notes written by
Bessy's girl friends. The truth was unbelievable. Yet here were the
proofs. Over Bessy and her friends Lane saw the dim dark shape of a
ghastly phantom, reaching out, enfolding, clutching. He went
downstairs to the kitchen and here he burned the writings.

"It ought to be told," he muttered. "But who's going to tell it? Who'd
believe me? The truth would not be comprehended by the mothers of
Middleville.... And who's to blame?"

It would not do, Lane reflected, to place the blame wholly upon blind
fa