reet.

CHAPTER XVIII

Jennie was now going through the agony of one who has a varied and
complicated problem to confront. Her baby, her father, her brothers,
and sisters all rose up to confront her. What was this thing that she
was doing? Was she allowing herself to slip into another wretched,
unsanctified relationship? How was she to explain to her family about
this man? He would not marry her, that was sure, if he knew all about
her. He would not marry her, anyhow, a man of his station and
position. Yet here she was parleying with him. What ought she to do?
She pondered over the problem until evening, deciding first that it
was best to run away, but remembering painfully that she had told him
where she lived. Then she resolved that she would summon up her
courage and refuse him--tell him she couldn't, wouldn't have
anything to do with him. This last solution of the difficulty seemed
simple enough--in his absence. And she would find work where he
could not follow her up so easily. It all seemed simple enough as she
put on her things in the evening to go home.

Her aggressive lover, however, was not without his own conclusion
in this matter. Since leaving Jennie he had thought concisely and to
the point. He came to the decision that he must act at once. She might
tell her family, she might tell Mrs. Bracebridge, she might leave the
city. He wanted to know more of the conditions which surrounded her,
and there was only one way to do that--talk to her. He must
persuade her to come and live with him. She would, he thought. She
admitted that she liked him. That soft, yielding note in her character
which had originally attracted him seemed to presage that he could win
her without much difficulty, if he wished to try. He decided to do so,
anyhow, for truly he desired her greatly.

At half-past five he returned to the Bracebridge home to see if she
were still there. At six he had an opportunity to say to her,
unobserved, "I am going to walk home with you. Wait for me at the next
corner, will you?"

"Yes," she said, a sense of compulsion to do his bidding seizing
her. She explained to herself afterward that she ought to talk to him,
that she must tell him finally of her decision not to see him again,
and this was as good an opportunity as any. At half-past six he left
the house on a pretext--a forgotten engagement--and a little
after seven he was waiting for her in a closed carriage near the
appointed spot. He wa