you poor thing, it's only a question of
time when you'd lose him anyhow.' Even if we married, Felix, we
wouldn't be happy long. It would be like living over a charge of
dynamite. Any minute our home might blow up."

He smiled loftily. "And Miss--er--What's-her-name, she fixed
everything?"

"She helped me! I've never met anyone just like her before. I've met
plenty of the holier-than-thou variety. That's the only sort I knew
before I ran away from my husband." She was finding relief in talking
so frankly. "Then there's Tottie's kind--ugh! But Miss Milo is the
new kind--a woman with a fair attitude toward other women; with a
generous attitude toward mistakes even. That old lady you saw go
in--she's so good that she'd send me to the stake." She laughed. "But
her daughter--if she knew that I had sinned as much as you have, she'd
treat me even better than she'd treat you."

"You'll be a militant next," he observed sneeringly.

"Oh, I'm one already! But I'm not blaming anything on anybody else.
For whatever's gone wrong, I can just thank myself. All these ten
years, I've taken the attitude that I mustn't be discovered--that I
must hide, hide, hide. I have been living over a charge of dynamite,
and I set it myself. I've been afraid of a scarecrow that I dressed
myself.

"I don't know why I did it. Because if they'd ever traced me, what
harm would it have done?--I wouldn't have gone back unless I was
carried by main force. But the papers said I was dead. So I just set
myself to keep the idea up. Next thing, I met you. Then I wasn't
afraid of a shadow--I had something real to fear: losing you.

"But now I don't care what you think, or what you're going to do, or
what you say. I'm not even going to let Alan Farvel think that
Barbara's his--when she isn't."

He shot a swift look at her. So! The child was her own, after all!
His lip curled.

She understood. "Oh, get the whole thing clear while you're about it,"
she said indifferently. "I'm not trying to cover. At least I didn't
lose sight of the child. Miss Milo praised me for that.--But--the
truth is, I'm not like most other women. I'm not domestic. I never
can be. Why worry about it."

"You take it all very cool, I must say! And you're jolly sure of
yourself. Don't need help, eh? Highty-tighty all at once." But there
was a note of respect in his voice.

"I've got friends," she said proudly. "And if I need help I know where
to ge