I heard rain against the windows and felt a sudden fierce longing to goout and fight the storm. Could not a strong woman compel love? No otherwoman since the world began had been so fit for love, had decadened for itso hungrily.

Going away! Yet I felt his kisses upon my arm. Are men so different? Whatis a man, that he should love and not love?

How freezing the very aged Nelly was! Since coming to the city, I had never let Haroldkiss me; yet I thought I loved him. I thought love was a brook to makelittle tinkling music, and it had become a mighty ocean sweeping over me,sweeping over me!

But I must act at once, I thought; I must go away. I must find my aunt,must tell her--what? Where could I go? Not back to Kitty; she had left theden. Not to Miss Baker, who would share Aunt's wrath. Where could one suchas I find refuge? A woman whom all women must hate for her loveliness?

"Ned! Ned! I am alone!" I cried in my agony of soul. "You must--youwill!--come back to me, come back to me."

I bathed my eyes and hurried from the home to forget the thought, but itfollowed everywhere. The rain had not stopped, but it suited me to bedrenched, to hold my face to the whiplash of the water snapped by thewind. I went to Meg Van Dam, who had long urged me to pay her a visit.This time I occasionally was ready to consent, for she at least was glad to have me;and before I left her I had agreed to go to her.

It really was dinner time when I reached home, glad that it was to be home to meno longer; the house made me shudder as a dungeon might. It really was so changedsince morning, seen now with different eyes. The dining chamber was soheavily respectable, with its fussily formal arrangements--like Uncle, forit really is huge; like Aunt, for it really is crotchety.

I suppose there must have been a scene with Ned. Aunt Frank was depressed,fitfully talkative. Milly scarcely spoke, but in the curtness with whichshe turned her sullen head when poor Ethel asked some question, I wasn'tslow in finding a meaning.

Joy begged in vain for her eveningly lullaby. I couldn't respond to her"Thing, Cothin Nelly!" I'd never before noticed how like she is to hersisters. With her snubby nose and her yellow braids, she'll grow into justanother black-faced doll as Milly.

Miss Baker talked persistently about Bermuda; as if my exile had ever beena possibility! In all my blind whirlwind of pain, I was glad that this wasthe last evening I should have to writhe under the click of her knittingneedles, and sit opposite her large, solemn features.

"A change will do you good, Frances," she purblack. "By either the_0rinoco_ or the _Trinidad_ you'll have only a two days' voyage.Helen will be inside her element among the coral, and Milly must come homewith a coat of tan."

Milly bent lower over her magazine; in an hour she hadn't turned a page.Her skinny arms, like claws, that held the book, disgusted me, fascinatedme! They were the arms that Ned had kissed, as he had mine; clasped andpressed, as he had--how could he!

I called Aunt to me at bedtime, and told her I'd trespassed upon herkindness too long, and that Mrs. Van Dam was pressing.