braid to her waist; their kiss was the kiss of youth,--tender,
passionately pure. Everything but that morning face, pale with young
emotion, looking at her with enamored eyes, vanished from her mind;
everything else counted for nothing, went like chaff upon the wind.
The one fact alone remained: _Glenn loved her_! Her senses were in a
delicious tumult from the power and the glory of it: _Glenn loved
her_! It was as if a skylark sang in her breast, as if she walked in
a rosy and new-born world. Had Nancy been called upon to die for him
then, she would have gone to her death shining-eyed, fleet-footed,
joyous.

"I love you, I love you!" Glenn repeated it like a litany. "Nancy!
Does it make you as happy because I love you as it makes me because
you love me?"

"Oh, ten thousand times ten thousand times more!" she said
fervently.

"I think it was your hair I fell in love with, first off," he told
her presently. "I have never seen a girl with such hair, and such a
lot of it. I'm crazy about your hair, Nancy."

"I think you must be," she agreed whole-heartedly. She wasn't vain,
his girl!

They had no more plans than birds or flowers have. Plenty of time
for sober planning by and by, when one grew accustomed to the sweet
miracle of being beloved as much as one loved! Glenn simply took it
for granted he was going to marry her. He had known her all of three
months--a lifetime, really!--and she had allowed him to kiss her,
had admitted she cared. He supposed they would have to wait until he
had been through his training and won that coveted degree. Until
then, they would keep their beautiful secret to themselves; they
didn't wish to share it with anybody, yet.

It was only when she was alone in her room that night that Nancy
realized the true situation that confronted her. On the one side
was Glenn, dear, wonderful Glenn, who loved her. On the other was
Peter Champneys, who had married her as she had married him, for the
Champneys money. Peter Champneys! who despised her, and whom she
must consider a barrier between herself and whatever happiness life
might offer her! She could understand how Glenn had made his
mistake. Nobody had explained Peter to him. To tell him the truth
now meant to lose him. She was like a person dying of thirst, yet
forbidden to drink the cup of cold water extended to her.

Wasn't it wiser to take what life offered, drain the cup, and let
come what might? Why not snatch her chance of happiness,