n before he had finished speaking Betty realized this to be the
blessed truth.

There in the far end of the big room stood her bed and, on a table
near, a bunch of John's pink roses. She could even see their bright
color vividly. In another direction was her dressing table and about
it hung the photographs of Rose, of Miss McMurtry, of the eleven Camp
Fire girls.

Dropping back into her chair Betty, covering her face with her hands,
began to sob. And she cried on without any effort at self-control
until she was limp and exhausted, although all the while her heart was
saying its own special hymn of thanksgiving. And young Dr. Barton kept
patting her upon the shoulder and urging her not to cry, because now
there was nothing to cry about, until Betty would like to have laughed
if the tears had not been bringing her a greater relief. How like a
man not to understand that she could now permit herself the indulgence
of tears, when for the past two weeks she had not dared, fearing that
once having given way there would be no end.

"Would you mind leaving me for a few minutes and trying to find
mother?" Betty at last managed to ask.

She wanted to be alone. But a few seconds after the doctor's
disappearance, Betty got up and with trembling knees managed to cross
her room, feeling dreadfully weak and exhausted from the long suspense.
For she wished to look into a mirror with no one watching. And as
Betty Ashton got the first glimpse of herself, although vanity had
never been one of her weaknesses, she honestly believed that she never
had seen any one look so tragically ugly before in her entire life.
She hardly recognized herself. Her face was white and thin, almost
bloodless except for the scar upon her forehead. Then her hair had
been cut off, and though in some places the curls still remained heavy
and thick, in others she looked like a badly shorn lamb.

And this time the tears crowding Betty's eyes were not of relief but of
wounded vanity.

"I never saw any one so hideous in my life," she remarked aloud. "And
I am truly sorry for the people who must have the misfortune of looking
at me."

Betty was wearing an Empire blue dressing gown and slippers and
stockings of the same color. Her eyes were dark gray and misty with
shadows under them. She looked ill, of course, and unlike her usual
self, and yet it would be difficult for any misfortune to have made
Betty Ashton actually ugly. For beauty is one of th