craved.

Of the utmost purity of thought herself, Alice Westmore had never
even permitted herself to harbor anything reflecting on the character
of those she trusted; and in the generosity of her nature, she
considered all her friends trustworthy. Thinking no evil, she knew
none; nor would she permit any idle gossip to be repeated before her.
In her case her unsuspecting nature was strengthened by her
environment, living as she was with her mother and brother only.

It is true that she had heard faint rumors of Richard Travis's life;
but the full impurity of it had never been realized by her until she
saw Maggie die. Then Richard Travis went, not only out of her life,
but out of her very thoughts. She remembered him only as she did some
evil character read of in fiction or history. Perhaps in this she was
more severe than necessary--since the pendulum of anger swings
always farthest in the first full stroke of indignation. And then the
surprise of it--the shock of it! Never had she gone through a week so
full of unhappiness, since it had come to her, years before, that Tom
Travis had been killed at Franklin.

Her mother's entreaties--tears, even--affected her now no more than
the cries of a spoiled child.

"Oh, Alice," she said one night when she had been explaining and
apologizing for Richard Travis--"you should know now, child, really,
you ought to know by now, that all men may not have been created
alike, but they are all alike."

"I do not believe it," said Alice with feeling--"I never want to
believe it--I never shall believe it."

"My darling," said the mother, laying her face against Alice's, "I
have reared you too far from the world."

But for once in her life Mrs. Westmore knew that her daughter, who
had heretofore been willing to sacrifice everything for her mother's
comfort, now halted before such a chasm as this, as stubborn and
instinctively as a wild doe in her flight before a precipice.

Twice Alice knew that Richard Travis had called; and she went to her
room and locked the door. She did not wish even to think of him; for
when she did it was not Richard Travis she saw, but Maggie dying,
with the picture of him under her pillow.

She devised many plans for herself, but go away she must, perhaps to
teach.

In the midst of her perplexity there came to her Saturday afternoon
a curiously worded note, from the old Cottontown preacher, telling
her not to forget now that he had returned and that Sun