seeing herself without the mask of cheerfulness she
had so determinedly assumed. And as she looked, her eyes suddenly filled
with tears--tears almost of self-pity.

For the mirror told her, what she had scarcely realized, just how much
she had suffered. Her eyes, usually so bright and merry, were dark and
brooding. Her face looked thin and drawn, and her lips--those lips that
had always seemed to smile even when her eyes were grave--had a
pathetic, wistful droop, and there were lines, yes, actually lines,
about them.

"If Allen should see you," she told herself tremulously, "he probably
wouldn't know you, Betty."

Yet all the while she knew that if it were possible for Allen to see her
or for her to see Allen, the face in the mirror would disappear as if by
magic and the old Betty would return, for joy would have taken its place
in her heart.

With a little sob she turned from the mirror and switched off the light.
The noise of the surf beating against the rocks came to her menacingly
and the wind wailed shrilly around the house.

"Oh, Allen, Allen!" she cried, stretching out her arms in an agony of
entreaty. "Somewhere you must hear me calling you. Allen, come back to
me, dear!"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SHADOW LIFTS

"I wonder if it is going to rain forever," cried Mollie petulantly,
beating a restless tattoo on the window pane. "As if we weren't forlorn
enough without the old weather making things a hundred times worse."

"They say troubles never come singly, and I guess they're right," sighed
Amy. She was sitting near the window in the brightest spot she could
find--which was not very bright at that--knitting and trying her best
not to think of Will. The result was that he was never for a minute out
of her mind.

"What's the matter, Grace--I mean more than usual?" Betty laid aside her
book and looked over at Grace questioningly. "I don't believe you've
said three consecutive words all day long."

"And left to myself I wouldn't say that much," returned Grace moodily,
adding, as they turned to stare at her: "It seems as if I never open my
mouth these days but what I say something unpleasant, so I made up my
mind last night that I wouldn't talk till I had something cheerful to
talk about."

"Then you're apt to be dumb till doomsday," retorted Mollie, with such a
depth of pessimism that the girls had to smile at her.

"What an awful thing to happen to a girl," said Betty, with a wry little
smile.