ng resentment broke into a blaze. "I know! Orma Fry,
and that toad of a Targatt girl and Ben Fry, like as not. He's going
round with her. The low-down sneaks--I always knew they'd try to have me
out! As if anybody ever came to the library, anyhow!"

"Somebody did yesterday, and you weren't there."

"Yesterday?" she laughed at her happy recollection. "At what time wasn't
I there yesterday, I'd like to know?"

"Round about four o'clock."

Charity was silent. She had been so steeped in the dreamy remembrance of
young Harney's visit that she had forgotten having deserted her post as
soon as he had left the library.

"Who came at four o'clock?"

"Miss Hatchard did."

"Miss Hatchard? Why, she ain't ever been near the place since she's been
lame. She couldn't get up the steps if she tried."

"She can be helped up, I guess. She was yesterday, anyhow, by the
young fellow that's staying with her. He found you there, I understand,
earlier in the afternoon; and he went back and told Miss Hatchard the
books were in bad shape and needed attending to. She got excited, and
had herself wheeled straight round; and when she got there the place was
locked. So she sent for me, and told me about that, and about the other
complaints. She claims you've neglected things, and that she's going to
get a trained librarian."

Charity had not moved while he spoke. She stood with her head thrown
back against the window-frame, her arms hanging against her sides, and
her hands so tightly clenched that she felt, without knowing what hurt
her, the sharp edge of her nails against her palms.

Of all Mr. Royall had said she had retained only the phrase: "He told
Miss Hatchard the books were in bad shape." What did she care for the
other charges against her? Malice or truth, she despised them as she
despised her detractors. But that the stranger to whom she had felt
herself so mysteriously drawn should have betrayed her! That at the
very moment when she had fled up the hillside to think of him more
deliciously he should have been hastening home to denounce her
short-comings! She remembered how, in the darkness of her room, she had
covered her face to press his imagined kiss closer; and her heart raged
against him for the liberty he had not taken.

"Well, I'll go," she said suddenly. "I'll go right off."

"Go where?" She heard the startled note in Mr. Royall's voice.

"Why, out of their old library: straight out, and never set foot in
it again.