t say too much she assented, and
held her peace. It was the first time in years that George had called a
girl beautiful.

Meantime Elizabeth had gone to her own room and locked the door. She
hardly knew what to think, her heart was so happy. Yet beneath it all was
the troubled thought of the lady, the haunting lady for whom they had
prayed together on the prairie. And as if to add to the thought she found
a bit of newspaper lying on the floor beside her dressing-table. Marie
must have dropped it as she came in to turn up the lights. It was nothing
but the corner torn from a newspaper, and should be consigned to the
waste-basket; yet her eye caught the words in large head-lines as she
picked it up idly, "Miss Geraldine Loring's Wedding to Be an Elaborate
Affair." There was nothing more readable. The paper was torn in a zigzag
line just beneath. Yet that was enough. It reminded her of her duty.

Down beside the bed she knelt, and prayed: "O my Father, hide me now; hide
me! I am in trouble; hide me!" Over and over she prayed till her heart
grew calm and she could think.

Then she sat down quietly, and put the matter before her.

This man whom she loved with her whole soul was to be married in a few
days. The world of society would be at the wedding. He was pledged to
another, and he was not hers. Yet he was her old friend, and was coming to
see her. If he came and looked into her face with those clear eyes of his,
he might read in hers that she loved him. How dreadful that would be!

Yes, she must search yet deeper. She had heard the glad ring in his voice
when he met her, and said, "Elizabeth!" She had seen his eyes. He was in
danger himself. She knew it; she might not hide it from herself. She must
help him to be true to the woman to whom he was pledged, whom now he would
have to marry.

She must go away from it all. She would run away, now at once. It seemed
that she was always running away from some one. She would go back to the
mountains where she had started. She was not afraid now of the man from
whom she had fled. Culture and education had done their work. Religion had
set her upon a rock. She could go back with the protection that her money
would put about her, with the companionship of some good, elderly woman,
and be safe from harm in that way; but she could not stay here and meet
George Benedict in the morning, nor face Geraldine Loring on her
wedding-day. It would be all the same the facing whether she we