swell
boobs," she whispered, passionately. "Dick Swann used me like dirt.
The next guy like him who tries to get gay with me will have some
fall, I'll tell the world.... Me for Harry! There's nothing in this
q-t stuff.... And say, what do you know about Bessy Bell? She came
here to save us.... Hot dog, but she's a peach!"

Lane admonished the girls to hurry and watched them until they reached
the street and turned the corner out of sight.

CHAPTER XVII

The reaction from that night landed Lane in the hospital, where,
during long weeks when he did have a lucid interval, he saw that his
life was despaired of and felt that he was glad of it.

But he did not die. As before, the weak places in his lungs healed
over and he began to mend, and gradually his periods of rationality
increased until he wholly gained his mental poise. It was, however, a
long time before he was strong enough to leave the hospital.

During the worst of his illness his mother came often to see him;
after he grew better she came but seldom. Blair and Colonel Pepper
were the only others who visited Lane. And as soon as his memory
returned and interest revived he learned much peculiarly significant
to him.

The secret of the club-rooms, so far as girls were concerned, never
became fully known to Middleville gossips. Strange and contrary rumors
were rife for a long time, but the real truth never leaked out. There
was never any warrant sworn for Lane's arrest. What the general public
had heard and believed was the story concocted by Thesel and Swann,
who claimed that Lane, over a gambling table, had been seized by one
of the frenzied fits common to deranged soldiers, and had attacked
them. Thesel lost his left eye and Swann carried a hideous red scar
from brow to cheek. Neither the club-room scandal nor his
disfigurement for life in any wise prevented Mrs. Maynard from
announcing the engagement of her daughter Margaret to Richard Swann.
The most amazing news was to hear that Helen Wrapp had married a rich
young politician named Hartley, who was running for the office of
magistrate. According to Blair, Daren Lane had divided Middleville
into two dissenting factions, a large one who banned him in disgrace,
and a small one who lifted their voices in his behalf. Of all the
endless bits of news, little and big, the one that broke happily on
Lane's ears was the word of a nurse, who told him that during his
severe illness a girl had called on the t