llen, turning suddenly, would find Edith's eyes on
her, full of angry distrust. At those times Ellen was glad that Edith
could not speak.

For at the end of a few days Ellen knew, and Edith knew she knew.

Edith could not speak. She wrote her wants with a stub of pencil, or
made signs. One day she motioned toward a mirror and Ellen took it to
her.

"You needn't be frightened," she said. "When those scabs come off the
doctor says you'll hardly be marked at all."

But Edith only glanced at herself, and threw the mirror aside.

Another time she wrote: "Willy?"

"He's all right. They've got a girl at the store to take your place, but
I guess you can go back if you want to." Then, seeing the hunger in the
girl's eyes: "He's out a good bit these nights. He's making speeches for
that Mr. Hendricks. As if he could be elected against Mr. Cardew!"

The confinement told on Ellen. She would sit for hours, wondering what
had become of Lily. Had she gone back home? Was she seeing that other
man? Perhaps her valiant loyalty to Lily faded somewhat during those
days, because she began to guess Willy Cameron's secret. If a girl had
no eyes in her head, and couldn't see that Willy Cameron was the finest
gentleman who ever stepped in shoe leather, that girl had something
wrong about her.

Then, sometimes, she wondered how Edith's condition was going to be kept
from her mother. She had measured Mrs. Boyd's pride by that time, her
almost terrible respectability. She rather hoped that the sick woman
would die some night, easily and painlessly in her sleep, because death
was easier than some things. She liked Mrs. Boyd; she felt a slightly
contemptuous but real affection for her.

Then one night Edith heard Willy's voice below, and indicated that she
wanted to see him. He came in, stooping under the sheet which Mrs. Boyd
had heard belonged in the doorway of diphtheria, and stood looking down
at her. His heart ached. He sat down on the bed beside her and stroked
her hand.

"Poor little girl," he said. "We've got to make things very happy for
her, to make up for all this!"

But Edith freed her hand, and reaching out for paper and pencil stub,
wrote something and gave it to Ellen.

Ellen read it.

"Tell him."

"I don't want to, Edith. You wait and do it yourself."

But Edith made an insistent gesture, and Ellen, flushed and wretched,
had to tell. He made no sign, but sat stroking Edith's hand, only he
stared rather fixedly at