adows flashing across her path.

"It's pretty late and it'll be dark as a pocket in a little while,"
thought she; but that did not detain her, and she raced on, putting
block after block between her and home in her ardor to make reparation
and to lighten her heart of its weight of compunction.

CHAPTER VII

OPEN CONFESSION

Nan knew the way to Mr. Turner's house perfectly, though she had not
been able to give Mrs. Newton the street and number. She was observing
and clear-headed, and could have been trusted to find her way about the
entire city alone, but her father had often cautioned Delia and the
girl herself against putting her power to the test, and so it happened
that until now she had never been any considerable distance away from
home after twilight without a companion. The way was perfectly
familiar to her--but it had never seemed so interminably long. She
could have taken a car, but in her haste to get off she had forgotten
her pocketbook. She saw the "trolleys" fly past her in quick
succession, and it seemed to her they whizzed jeeringly at her as they
sped. She was by nature so fearless that even if the street had not
been thronged she would not have been afraid. As it was she was only
alarmed lest she would get to Mr. Turner's and find Miss Blake gone.

She hurried on breathlessly, fairly skipping with impatience and
wondering what explanation she could give the lawyer in case the
governess had not told him the real reason of her departure. Somehow
it flashed into Nan's mind that Miss Blake would not expose her. She
was busied with this reflection as she turned off the broad,
well-lighted thoroughfare into the dimmer side-street upon which Mr.
Turner lived, and she ran up the steps of his house with the question
still unsettled. It was not a moment before the door was opened to her
and she was admitted to the warm, luxuriously furnished drawing-room.
It was Nan's ideal of a house: "all full of curtains and soft carpets
and beautiful things." She seated herself before the burning log-fire
with a sensation of deep well-being--only it was a little over-shadowed
by her worry about the governess.

"Well, my little lady, and what brings you here at this time of day?"
was Mr. Turner's greeting, as he strode across the room to meet her.

"O Mr. Turner!" began Nan, bluntly, "I came to see you about Miss
Blake. I want to know--I wonder if you--"

"Indeed! And how is that charming lady? You