Girl Alone

e of gasoline torches, as the business of loading the carnival proceeded. Soft, rich vo

had wings l

rison walls

o the ahms of

h'd be will

Pop Bybee and Dan, the barker, she and David might have been behind pris

looming immensely broad in the dark coat he had donned in her honor. Her hands were out to him before he had reached her, and when he took them both and laid them softly against his brea

ly, Sally having the absurd feeling that if the grass stubble were tender, tiny flowers, her joy-light feet would not have crushed them. Her fingers were intertwined with David's, and the electric thrill of that contact seemed t

pon the ground that sloped gently from the sturdy trunk of an oak tree. As he was stooping to spread the coat her hand hovered over his head, aching to touch the dear, waving crispne

ht body to his breast with such fierce

st that hoarse cry

irt that they abandoned it reluctantly. When her hands were on his shoulders, clinging there, she threw her head back upo

dark, luminous, clung for an aeon of time, reckoned in the history of love. Then David, knowing

his shoulders. For he flung up his head, then turned it sharply away for a moment, as if ashamed for her to see

d in a small, quavering voice

t!" David reproached himse

ou love me-at all? I thought-I-" Her hands fluttered toward him, the

ed from the shelter of his arm. "I love you so much I

, David? I-I love you, too. You-must-have known. I love you with all my heart." She stooped

. "Don't you see, darling-no, I mustn't call you that!-don't you see, Sally, that your-caring-only makes it worse? I wish I were the only one

Is it such a crime to be young? You're young, too, David-d

's farm. And I won't have any money except barely enough to live on-I work my way through college-until I've finished school. And then it will be a long, hard struggle to get a start, unle

her fingers closing caressingly about t

all so hopeless! We're in such a nasty jam, Sally, darling!" He groaned, snatched up her hands, kissed them hungrily, passionately, then dropped them as if the soft, sweet fl

"I'll never love anyone else. I'll wait for you, for years and years. Until I'

o get back into A. & M. and finish my course. I couldn't let you marry a man wanted for attempted murder, even if I could support you. Oh, I guess I could make a bare living for us, but I don't want that! Not for you! I want you to have every

vid," she

tonight. We'll keep going until we get out of the state. We'll lie about our ages. We'll find som

her, but she held back strangely, while her f

essly, her hands flattened against her breast. "Mrs. By

it hurt and bewildered. "So you're going to f

don't even know what my name really is-if I have a name! Whoever my mother was she was ashamed I'd been born, she paid Mrs. Ford to

ou think I would let that make any difference at all? If anything could, it would make me love you more. But I love you now with every bit of me. And we'll be ma

. I've waited twelve years to find my mother, and I didn't give up hope until today. I would wait twice twelve years for you

vid burst out. "We are both trapped in this second-ra

pted reasonably. "We can start life again. This trouble will bl

torture ourselves any more. I know I mustn't marry you under this cloud, but let's be happy for a few minutes before we go back to the show train. No,

s David drank in her moon-silvered young beauty, and she fed her love-hunger upon his Viking-like handsomeness and stren

rning you! If you double-cross me I'll

on, walking swiftly, two shadows that