llen came back to her desk sooner than I expected, and the moment
this young minx hesitatingly told me she had been here and had gone home
I suspected something, and presently pumped the whole truth out of her.
The contemptible meanness of some women passes all my descriptive
powers. There are several girls employed in the library, and it seems
some of them were jealous of Miss Wallen, or rather of her superior
position, and one evening that fellow Elmendorf got in there and
threatened her with exposure or something of the kind and insulted her,
so that she slapped his face, and two of those library girls heard it.
It happened just before Forrest came in, and he found her all quivering
and unstrung. She was to have finished some work for him that evening,
and he was to have dined at Allison's, but she was so broken up it was
some time before she could go on with it. Neither could she tell him the
cause. Well, it was one of these very girls whom, all unthinkingly, I
had put in her place, and what does the little wretch do the morning
that Jeannette returned but tell her all about Allison's row with me,
and his demand and reasons for her discharge! Of course she didn't tell
of my refusal; she says she didn't happen to hear that, which is a lie,
I reckon. However, that's the big, big last pound that broke the heart
of that poor hard-working, long-suffering girl and sent her home a sick
woman. Francis says she'll pull through; but what do you suppose will
come of it even then?" Wells told him more about poor Jenny, all the
story of her long, brave struggle so far as he knew it, which was far
less than the facts, and Cranston wished with all his heart that Meg,
his own bonny wife, were home to help and counsel. All the same he meant
to see Kenyon, and later, perhaps, Forrest.

But he saw the latter first.

There was a brilliant gathering at the club that night. Matters had so
quieted down in the disturbed districts that many of the regular
officers had been permitted to accept invitations to be present. Allison
had not wished to go, but Florence begged. She was looking "absolutely
saffron," said Aunt Lawrence, and if something wasn't done to break up
that child's nervous melancholy she wouldn't be responsible for her.
That she herself was in the faintest degree responsible for the alleged
nervous melancholy Aunt Lawrence would not have admitted for a moment.
Allison was in evil humor, as is many a better man when beginning t