ood name! There's no limit to her
selfishness and miserable hypocrisy. Our efforts and consideration
haven't restrained her a particle, and she will tread the road she
chooses irrespective of our desires or feelings. What fools we've
been! You and I, Imogene Martin, aren't going to chase a
will-o'-the-wisp any longer. We've wasted enough time on this delusion
of saving Ruth Gardner; if she's to be saved, she must save
herself--and if she will not do that, then the whole world together is
of no avail. You're never going to come here again, or have anything
to do with her, or let her have a part in your life. Nor am I. She
walks out of our book, and we draw a pen across the bottom of the
page."

Imogene had covered her face with her hands during his terrible
denunciation and was weeping softly. She knew it was true. She knew
that Ruth had gone out of her life, for such baseness as her one-time
friend had shown was not to be forgiven.

"You're right--I can't go on here longer," she sobbed. "I'm sick, I'm
really sick. I've been barely crawling about for the last two days.
And she knew it and left me! Oh, Ruth, Ruth!"

"And would have left you, storm or no storm, and whether I came or
not! In order to be alone with Gretzinger!" Her heart-breaking sobs
went on. "Don't weep, Imogene. Put her out of your mind." He gently
placed an arm about her shoulders. "Come, I will take you to Louise."

That she had been "crawling about the last two days" was apparent when
she attempted to rise. Her strength suddenly vanished, her knees gave
way. Bryant secured her coat and cap, wrapped her in blankets from the
bed, and carried her out to the car. Then he put out her lamp and
locked the door.

And that turning of the lock, Lee felt, terminated a painful chapter
of his life.

CHAPTER XXVII

As by the girls' cabins, so before the Graham house, Lee perceived a
motor car. He brought his own machine to a stop near it and cut off
his engine. At the same instant the door opened in the house, where by
the light shining through the portal he saw Louise's and Charlie
Menocal's figures. Menocal stepped forth.

"You will please go now," Louise was saying. "When you telephoned I
told you then that I shouldn't go with you, or go to the dance at
all."

Bryant had alighted and was arranging the blankets about Imogene.
Charlie's voice spoke, rather truculently:

"I told you I was coming for you, didn't I? Now see what a position
that