it is? You like me too."

"I can't," she repeated, with a sob.

Her evident distress touched him. "You're not crying, little girl,
are you?" he asked.

She made no answer.

"I'm sorry," he went on. "I'll not say anything more to-night.
We're almost at your home. I'm leaving to-morrow, but I'll see you
again. Yes, I will, sweet. I can't give you up now. I'll do anything
in reason to make it easy for you, but I can't, do you hear?"

She shook her head.

"Here's where you get out," he said, as the carriage drew up near
the corner. He could see the evening lamp gleaming behind the Gerhardt
cottage curtains.

"Good-by," he said as she stepped out.

"Good-by," she murmured.

"Remember," he said, "this is just the beginning."

"Oh no, no!" she pleaded.

He looked after her as she walked away.

"The beauty!" he exclaimed.

Jennie stepped into the house weary, discouraged, ashamed. What had
she done? There was no denying that she had compromised herself
irretrievably. He would come back.

He would come back. And he had offered her money. That was the
worst of all.

CHAPTER XIX

The inconclusive nature of this interview, exciting as it was, did
not leave any doubt in either Lester Kane's or Jennie's mind;
certainly this was not the end of the affair. Kane knew that he was
deeply fascinated. This girl was lovely. She was sweeter than he had
had any idea of. Her hesitancy, her repeated protests, her gentle "no,
no, no" moved him as music might. Depend upon it, this girl was for
him, and he would get her. She was too sweet to let go. What did he
care about what his family or the world might think?

It was curious that Kane held the well-founded idea that in time
Jennie would yield to him physically, as she had already done
spiritually. Just why he could not say. Something about her--a
warm womanhood, a guileless expression of countenance--intimated
a sympathy toward sex relationship which had nothing to do with hard,
brutal immorality. She was the kind of a woman who was made for a
man--one man. All her attitude toward sex was bound up with love,
tenderness, service. When the one man arrived she would love him and
she would go to him. That was Jennie as Lester understood her. He felt
it. She would yield to him because he was the one man.

On Jennie's part there was a great sense of complication and of
possible disaster. If he followed her of course he would learn all.
She had not told him about Bran