ne to tell me," she began. "We were with each other so
much. I did not know anything of the world--then."

She paused to meditate. Bashford was biting his lip impatiently.

"If I had only known--"

She paused again.

"Yes, go on," he urged.

"We were together almost every evening."

"Billy?" he demanded, with a savageness that startled her.

"Yes, of course, Billy. We were with each other so much... If I had only
known... There was no one to tell me... I was so young--"

Her lips parted as though to speak further, and she regarded him
anxiously.

"The scoundrel!"

With the explosion Ned Bashford was on his feet, no longer a tired
Greek, but a violently angry young man.

"Billy is not a scoundrel; he is a good man," Loretta defended, with a
firmness that surprised Bashford.

"I suppose you'll be telling me next that it was all your fault," he
said sarcastically.

She nodded.

"What?" he shouted.

"It was all my fault," she said steadily. "I should never have let him.
I was to blame."

Bashford ceased from his pacing up and down, and when he spoke, his
voice was resigned.

"All right," he said. "I don't blame you in the least, Loretta. And you
have been very honest. But Billy is right, and you are wrong. You must
get married."

"To Billy?" she asked, in a dim, far-away voice.

"Yes, to Billy. I'll see to it. Where does he live? I'll make him."

"But I don't want to marry Billy!" she cried out in alarm. "Oh, Ned, you
won't do that?"

"I shall," he answered sternly. "You must. And Billy must. Do you
understand?"

Loretta buried her face in the cushioned chair back, and broke into a
passionate storm of sobs.

All that Bashford could make out at first, as he listened, was: "But I
don't want to leave Daisy! I don't want to leave Daisy!"

He paced grimly back and forth, then stopped curiously to listen.

"How was I to know?--Boo--hoo," Loretta was crying. "He didn't tell me.
Nobody else ever kissed me. I never dreamed a kiss could be so
terrible... until, boo-hoo... until he wrote to me. I only got the
letter this morning."

His face brightened. It seemed as though light was dawning on him.

"Is that what you're crying about?"

"N--no."

His heart sank.

"Then what are you crying about?" he asked in a hopeless voice.

"Because you said I had to marry Billy. And I don't want to marry Billy.
I don't want to leave Daisy. I don't know what I want. I wish I were
dead."

He nerved himself