her chin on her palms, struggling with the impulse to cry,
protesting with all her young strength against the bitterness that had
come to her through no fault of her own. There was only one cheerful
gleam. She loved Jack Barrow. She believed that he loved her, and she
could not believe--she could not conceive--him capable of keeping
aloof, obdurate and unforgiving, once he got out of the black mood he
was in. Then she could snuggle up close to him and tell him how and
why Mr. Andrew Bush had struck at her from his deathbed.

She was still sitting by the window, watching the yellow crimson of the
sunset, when some one rapped at her door. A uniformed messenger boy
greeted her when she opened it:

"Package for Miss Hazel Weir."

She signed his delivery sheet. The address on the package was in
Jack's handwriting. A box of chocolates, or some little peace
offering, maybe. That was like Jack when he was sorry for anything.
They had quarreled before--over trifles, too.

She opened it hastily. A swift heart sinking followed. In the small
cardboard box rested a folded scarf, and thrust in it a small gold
stickpin--the only thing she had ever given Jack Barrow. There was no
message. She needed none to understand.

The sparkle of the small diamond on her finger drew her gaze. She
worked his ring over the knuckle, and dropped it on the dresser, where
the face in the silver frame smiled up at her. She stared at the
picture for one long minute fixedly, with unchanging expression, and
suddenly she swept it from the dresser with a savage sweep of her hand,
dashed it on the floor, and stamped it shapeless with her slippered
heel.

"Oh, oh!" she gasped. "I hate you--I hate you! I despise you!"

And then she flung herself across the bed and sobbed hysterically into
a pillow.

CHAPTER V

THE WAY OF THE WORLD AT LARGE

Through the night Hazel dozed fitfully, waking out of uneasy sleep to
lie staring, wide-eyed, into the dark, every nerve in her body taut,
her mind abnormally active. She tried to accept things
philosophically, but her philosophy failed. There was a hurt, the pain
of which she could not ease by any mental process. Grief and anger by
turns mastered her, and at daybreak she rose, heavy-lidded and
physically weary.

The first thing upon which her gaze alighted was the crumpled photo in
its shattered frame; and, sitting on the side of her bed, she laughed
at the sudden fury in which she had