r courage daunted. For a moment the idea of flight suggested
itself to her--she would avoid the issue. She would hide from reproach
and contumely, and without further explanation go back to her place in
the country at Bannister. But the little exigencies of her position made
this impossible. Besides her nurse's bag, her satchel was the only
baggage she had at that moment, and she knew that there was but little
money in her purse.

All at once she realised that while debating the question she had been
sitting on one of the benches under the trees in the square. The sun was
setting; evening was coming on. Maybe if she waited until six o'clock
she could enter the house while the other nurses were at supper, gain
her room unobserved, then lock herself in and deny herself to all
callers. But Lloyd made a weary, resigned movement of her shoulders.
Sooner or later she must meet them all eye to eye. It would be only
putting off the humiliation.

She rose, and, turning to the house, began to walk slowly toward it. Why
put it off? It would be as hard at one time as another. But so great was
her sense of shame that even as she walked she fancied that the very
passers-by, the loungers on the benches around the fountain, must know
that here was a disgraced woman. Was it not apparent in her very face,
in the very uncertainty of her gait? She told herself she had not done
wisely to sit even for a moment upon the bench she had just quitted. She
wondered if she had been observed, and furtively glanced about her.
There! Was not that nursemaid studying her too narrowly? And the
policeman close at hand, was he not watching her quizzically? She
quickened her gait, moved with a sudden impulse to get out of sight, to
hide within doors--where? In the house? There where, so soon as she set
foot in it, her companions, the other nurses, must know her dishonour?
Where was she to go? Where to turn? What was to become of her?

But she _must_ go to the house. It was inevitable. She went forward, as
it were, step by step. That little journey across the square under the
elms and cottonwoods was for her a veritable _chemin de la croix_. Every
step was an agony; every yard covered only brought her nearer the time
and place of exposure. It was all the more humiliating because she knew
that her impelling motive was not one of duty. There was nothing lofty
in the matter--nothing self-sacrificing. She went back because she had
to go back. Little material n