ned strides.

"Barney!" Rose called after him; but he paid no attention. She even
ran up the path after him; but the door shut, and she turned back.
She was trembling from head to foot, there was a great rushing in her
ears; but she heard a quick light step behind her when she got out on
the road, and she hurried on before it with a vague dread.

She almost ran at length; but the footsteps gained on her. A dark
skirt brushed her light-colored one, and Charlotte's voice, full of
contempt and indignation, said in her ear: "Oh, I thought it was
you."

"I--was coming up--to your--house," Rose faltered; she could hardly
get her breath to speak.

"Why didn't you come, then?" demanded Charlotte. "What made you go to
Barney Thayer's?"

"I didn't," said Rose, in feeble self-defence. "He was out in the
road--I--just stopped to--speak to him--"

"You were coming out of his yard," Charlotte said, pitilessly. "You
followed him in there--I saw you. Shame on you!"

"Oh, Charlotte, I haven't done anything out of the way," pleaded
Rose, weakly.

"You have tried your best to get Barney Thayer all the time you have
been pretending to be such a good friend to me. I don't know what you
call out of the way."

"Charlotte, don't--I haven't."

"Yes, you have. I am going to tell you, once for all, what I think of
you. You've been a false friend to me; and now when Barney don't
notice you, you follow him up as no girl that thought anything of
herself would. And you don't even care anything for him; you haven't
even that for an excuse."

"You don't know but what I do!" Rose cried out, desperately.

"Yes, I do know. If anybody else came along, you'd care for him just
the same."

"I shouldn't--Charlotte, I should never have thought of Barney if
he--hadn't left you, you know I shouldn't."

"That's no excuse," said Charlotte, sternly.

"You said yourself he would never come back to you," said Rose.

"Would you have liked me to have done so by you, if you had been in
my place?"

Rose twitched herself about. "You can't expect him never to marry
anybody because he isn't going to marry you," she said, defiantly.

"I don't--I am not quite so selfish as that. But he won't ever marry
anybody he don't like because she follows him up, and I don't see how
that alters what you've done."

Rose began to walk away. Charlotte stood still, but she raised her
voice. "I am not very happy," said she, "and I sha'n't be happy my
whole life, but