than just friendship? I shall haunt the office until I hear
from you, so lose no time."

Further on she read:

"I love you mightily, Essie Tisdale, and I have not closed my eyes for
making plans for you and me. It is quite the most delirious happiness I
have ever known. I long to take you away from Crowheart and place you in
the environment in which you rightly belong, for, while we know nothing
of your parentage, I would stake my life that in it you have no cause
for shame. I am filled with all a lover's eagerness to give, to heap
upon you the things which women like--to share with you my possessions
and my pleasures.

"But in the midst of my castle building comes the chilling thought that
I am taking everything for granted and the fear that I have been
presumptuous in mistaking your dear, loyal comradeship for something
more makes me fairly tremble. I am very humble, Essie Tisdale, when I
think of you, but I am going to believe you will say '_yes_' until you
have said '_no_'."

Dr. Harpe crumpled the letter and hurled it into the farthermost corner
of the room, half sick with a feeling of helplessness, of passionate
regret and despair. She realized to the fullest what she was losing, or,
as she phrased it to herself, what was "slipping through her fingers,"
And this was to be the future of the girl whom it seemed to her she
hated above all others and all else in the world! The thought was
maddening. She strode to and fro, kicking her torn flounce and trailing
skirt out of the way with savage resentment. Van Lennop's letter
temporarily punctured her conceit, chagrin and mortification adding to
her feeling the anguish of that bad half hour. "That creature" he was
calling her while in her ridiculous self-complacency she was drinking to
her Supreme Moment. Oh, it was unbearable! She covered her reddening
face with both hands.

When she raised it at last there was a light in her eyes, new purpose in
her face. Her moment of weakness and defeat had passed. She would make
good her boast that that person was not yet born who could ultimately
defeat her. She would not go so far as to say that in the end she would
marry Van Lennop nor would she admit that it was impossible, but she
swore that whatever else might happen, Essie Tisdale should never be his
wife. In every clash between herself and this girl she had won, so why
not again? There must be--there was--some way to prevent it!

She had no plan in mind as yet, but so