Exit Betty

ight and open the window. A light leaped up from the street and made a friendly spot of brightness on the opposi

p the covers carefully lest she should let the co

oice as if she had brought home a young

e safe away from them all! Oh, I've needed some one to advise with so much! I haven't h

ched out quick gentle arms and gathered her in a close comforting embrace.

until I got into the church and looked around and couldn't see Bessemer anywhere; only the other one with his evil eyes gloating over me, and then I knew! They thought they would get m

tand," said Jane. "

hed Betty, "th

other one, the one

hed Herbert, the younger one, who was so determined to marry me. I was terribly afraid of him. He had been frightfully cruel to me when I was a child and when he grew up he was always tormenting me; and then when he tried to make love to me he was so repulsiv

exclaimed Jane in horror. "This is a free country and nobody ever makes p

e, I didn't know where to go, nor what to do. They never would let me learn to do anything useful, so I couldn't have got any work; and anyhow I had a feeling that it wou

d to the mother in Jane, and she stooped over her

t you; what was the idea in sticking around and thinking you had to marry somebody you didn't like? You cou

f he had been alive! I couldn't quite bring myself, either, to go against his dying request. We had always been so much to each

dn't care any more for me than to want me to marry somebody I felt that way

curls that were falling all about her eager, troubled young face, "and he did love me, Jane, he loved me bette

n bed and staring at the spot of light on the wall. "That gets

if she were committing a breach of loyalty to explain, but realized that it was necessary-"and he felt when he was dying th

eliberately with each word, "but-I don't see it that wa

ld to me, and he used to come up to school week-ends and take me on beautiful trips

er voice died out, in a sudden sob. Jane's han

n anything. I was just trying to dope it out; get it through my bean wh

word-it was his

e reques

tepmo

you know he did? How'd y

ike a knife when I saw it, that my dear father should have asked me to do what was so very very hard for me to think of. It was so much harder to have it come that way. If he had only asked me himself and we could have talked it over, perhaps he would have helped me to be strong enough to d

me of 'em forged his name. It's easy to copy signatures. Lotsa people do it real good. If I was you I wouldn't think another mite about it. If he was a man like you say he is, he couldn'ta done a thing like that to his own little girl, not on his

g to Jane eagerly, the tears raining down her white cheeks. "I've th

had waked up in the night with a bad dream. "Now, look here, you stop crying and don't you worry another bit. Just tell me the r

all out, and I asked him to send Bessemer to me. I wanted to find out why he hadn't been standing up there by the minister the way I expected. I heard the doctor go out and ask for Bessemer and I heard my stepmother's voice say, 'Why Bessemer isn't

sure am glad I was on the job! But now, tell me, what's yo

dn't bother me any, if I wouldn't bother him; and we thought perhaps the others would let us alone then. But I might have known Herbert wouldn't give in! Bessemer is easily led-Herbert could have hired him to go away to-night-or they may have made him ask me to marry him. He's like that," sadly. "You can't depend on him. I don't know. You see, it was kind of queer about the invitations. They came with Herbert's name in them first, and my stepmother tried to keep me from seeing them. She said they were late and she had them all sent off; but I found one, and when I went to my stepmother with it

so much?" Jane

shud

to think about him-he is-unbearable, Jane! Why, Jane, once he told me if

e, and I've pulled the washstand in front of the door, so you needn't be dreaming of anybody coming in and finding you. Now go to sleep, and to-morrow I'll sneak you away to a place where

ave done if I hadn't found you. You were like an ang

said Jane thoughtfully. "An an

children to support in a small country village, and only plain sewing and now and then a boarder to eke out a living for them all, she had sought and found, through a summer visitor who had taught her Sunday school class for a few weeks, a good position in this big Eastern city. She had made good and been promoted until her wages not only kept herself with strict economy, but justified her in looking forward to the time when she might send for her next younger sister. Her deft fingers kept her meagre wardrobe in neatness-and a tolerable deference to fashion, so that she had been able to annex the "gentleman friend" and take a little outing with him now and then at a moving picture theatre or a Sunday evening service. She had met and vanquished the devil on more than one battlefield in the course of her experience with different dep

t in with all the romance Jane had ever dreamed. If she o

down and fell