an behind her, turned and walked as fast as she could up the
hill, and when she turned the corner she tried to run. Her feet took
her to the Barclay home. She stood trembling in terror on the great
wide porch and rang the bell. The servant admitted the white-faced,
shaking woman, and she ran to Jane Barclay's room.

"Oh, Jane," chattered Molly, "Jane, for God's love, Jane, hold
me--hold me tight; don't let me go. Don't!" She sank to the floor and
put her face in Jane's lap and stuttered: "I--I--have g-g-got to
t-t-tell you, Jane. I've g-g-ot to t-t-t-ell you, J-J-Jane." And then
she fell to sobbing. "Hold me, don't let me go out there. When it
whistles ag-g-gain h-h-hold me t-t-tight."

Jane Barclay's strong kind hands stroked the dishevelled hair of the
trembling woman. And in time she looked up and said quietly, "You
know--you know, Jane, Bob and I--Bob and I were going to run away!"
Molly looked at Jane a fearful second with beseeching eyes, and then
dropped her head and fell to sobbing again, and lay with her face on
the other woman's knees.

When she was quiet Jane said: "I wouldn't talk about it any more,
dear--not now." She stroked the hair and patted the face of the woman
before her. "Shall we go to bed now, dear? Come right in with me." And
soon Molly rose, and her spent soul rested in peace. But they did not go
to bed. The dawn found the two women talking it out together--clear from
the beginning.

And when the day came Molly Brownwell went to Jane Barclay's desk and
wrote. And when Bob Hendricks came home that night, his sister handed
him a letter. It ran:--

"MY DEAR BOB: I have thought it all out, dear; it wouldn't do at
all. I went to the train, and something, I don't know what, caught
me and dragged me over to Jane's. She was good--oh, so good. She
knows; but it was better that she should than--the other way.

"It will never do, Bob. We can't go back. The terrible something
that I did stands irrevocably between us. The love that might have
made both our lives radiant is broken, Bob--forever broken. And all
the king's horses and all the king's men cannot ever put it together
again. I know it now, and oh Bob, Bob, it makes me sadder than the
pain of unsatisfied love in my heart.

"It just can't be; nothing ever can make it as it was, and unless it
could be that way--the boy and girl way, it would be something
dreadful. We have missed the best in th