mine. That other nurse--that black
haired one--she said you was an orphan, alone in the world. Well, I
pity a young girl alone in the world."

"It's all right to be alone in the world--if you just keep busy
enough," Eleanor said. "But you mustn't talk any more. I'm going to
give you your medicine and then sit here and read to you."

* * * * *

On the morning of her flight from the inn, after a night spent staring
motionless into the darkness, Eleanor took the train to the town some
dozen miles beyond Harmonville, where her old friend Bertha Stephens
lived. To "Stevie," to whom the duplicity of Maggie Lou had served to
draw her very close in the ensuing year, she told a part of her story.
It was through the influence of Mrs. Stephens, whose husband was on
the board of directors of the Harmonville hospital, that Eleanor had
been admitted there. She had resolutely put all her old life behind
her. The plan to take up a course in stenography and enter an
editorial office was to have been, as a matter of course, a part of
her life closely associated with Peter. Losing him, there was nothing
left of her dream of high adventure and conquest. There was merely the
hurt desire to hide herself where she need never trouble him again,
and where she could be independent and useful. Having no idea of her
own value to her guardians, or the integral tenderness in which she
was held, she sincerely believed that her disappearance must have
relieved them of much chagrin and embarrassment.

Her hospital training kept her mercifully busy. She had the
temperament that finds a virtue in the day's work, and a balm in its
mere iterative quality. Her sympathy and intelligence made her a good
nurse and her adaptability, combined with her loveliness, a general
favorite.

She spent her days off at the Stephens' home. Bertha Stephens had been
the one girl that Peter had failed to write to, when he began to
circulate his letters of inquiry. Her name had been set down in the
little red book, but he remembered the trouble that Maggie Lou had
precipitated, and arrived at the conclusion that the intimacy existing
between Eleanor and Bertha had not survived it. Except that Carlo
Stephens persisted in trying to make love to her, and Mrs. Stephens
covertly encouraged his doing so, Eleanor found the Stephens' home a
very comforting haven. Bertha had developed into a full breasted,
motherly looking girl, passiona