e
gloom.

"Damn 'em," she hissed. "Damn 'em--damn 'em--damn 'em!"

His fingers felt for and found a match and struck it. Her face was
working convulsively, twisted with hate, both small fists lifted
toward the huge house that crowned the opposite hill. It made him
remember that first day when he had looked up, with the rabbit
struggling in his arms, and found her standing there in the thicket
before him, only now the fury that blazed in her eyes was not for him.
There was a rough red welt across her forehead only half hidden by the
tumbled hair that cascaded to her waist, torn loose from its scant
fastenings by the whipping brush. And as he stood with the flame of
the flickering match scorching his fingers, Denny Bolton remembered
all the rest--he remembered the light that still burned unanswered in
the window across the valley. He bowed his head.

[Illustration: "HOLD ME TIGHT--OH! HOLD ME TIGHTER! FOR THEY FORGOT ME,
TOO, DENNY; THEY FORGOT ME TOO!"]

"I--I forgot," he faltered at last. "I did not know it was so late. I
must have been--pretty tired."

Slowly the girl's clenched hands came away from her throat while she
stared up into his face, brown and lean and very hard and bitter. The
ashen terror upon her own cheeks disappeared with a greater, growing
comprehension of all that lay behind that dully colorless statement.
For just a moment her fingers hovered over the opening at the neck of
her too small blouse and felt the thick white card that lay hidden
within, before she lifted both arms to him in impulsive compassion,
trying to smile in spite of the wearily childish droop at the corners
of her lips.

"I know, Denny," she quavered. "I--I understand." Her arms slipped up
around his neck. "Hold me tight--oh, hold me tighter! For they forgot
me, too, Denny; they forgot me, too!"

As his arms closed about her slim body she buried her bright head
against the vividly checkered coat and sobbed silently--great
noiseless gasps that shook her small shoulders terribly. Once, after a
long time, when she held his face away to peer up at him through
brimming eyes, she saw that all the numb bitterness was gone from
it--that he had forgotten all else save her own hurt.

"Why, you mustn't feel so badly for me," she told him then, warmly
tremulous of mouth. "I--I don't mind now, very much. Only"--her voice
broke unsteadily--"only I did want to go just once where all the
others go; I wanted them to see me just once in a