ewith
to comfort and reassure the girl.

She bent forward, elbows on knees, head and shoulders cringing.

"It hurts so!" she wailed ... "what people will think ... the shame, the
bitter, bitter shame of this! And yet I haven't any right to complain. I
deserve it all; I've earned my punishment."

"Oh, I say--!"

"But I have, because--because I didn't love him. I didn't love him at
all, and I knew it, even though I meant to marry him...."

"But, why--in Heaven's name?"

"Because I was so lonely and ... misunderstood and unhappy at home.
You don't know how desperately unhappy.... No mother, never daring
to see my sister (she ran away, too) ... my friendships at school
discouraged ... nothing in life but a great, empty, lonesome house
and my father to bully me and make cruel fun of me because I'm not
pretty.... That's why I ran away with a man I didn't love--because
I wanted freedom and a little happiness."

"Good Lord!" he murmured beneath his breath, awed by the pitiful,
childish simplicity of her confession and the deep damnation that had
waited upon her.

"So it's over!" she cried--"over, and I've learned my lesson, and I'm
disgraced forever, and friendless and--"

"Stop right there!" he checked her roughly. "You're not friendless yet,
and that nullifies all the rest. Be glad you've had your romance and
learned your lesson--"

"Please don't think I'm not grateful for your kindness," she
interrupted. "But the disgrace--that can't be blotted out!"

"Oh, yes, it can," he insisted bluntly. "There's a way I know--"

A glimmering of that way had only that instant let a little light in
upon the darkness of his solicitous distress for her. He rose and began
to walk and think, hands clasped behind him, trying to make what he had
in mind seem right and reasonable.

"You mean beg my father to take me back. I'll die first!"

"There mustn't be any more talk, or even any thought, of anything like
that. I understand too well to ask the impossible of you. But there is
one way out--a perfectly right way--if you're willing and brave enough
to take a chance--a long chance."

Somehow she seemed to gain hope of his tone. She sat up, following him
with eyes that sought incredulously to believe.

"Have I any choice?" she asked. "I'm desperate enough...."

"God knows," he said, "you'll have to be!"

"Try me."

He paused, standing over her.

"Desperate enough to marry a man who's bound to die within six months
and lea