going to private school.”
“And Rose?”
“Rose went to work. She had a hard time. I never heard from her for weeks. But she's a telephone operator at the Exchange now. She called me up one day lately and told me. I hope to see her soon.”
“About those verses, Bessy. How did Miss Hill find out who wrote them?”
“I told her. Then she sent me home.”
“Have you any more verses you wrote?”
“Yes, a lot of them. If you lend me your pencil, I'll write out the verse that gave Miss Hill heart disease.”
Bessy took up a book that had been lying on the seat, and tearing out the fly-leaf, she began to write. Her slim, shapely hand flew. It fascinated Lane.
“There!” she said, ending with a flourish and a smile.
But Lane, foreshadowing the import of the verse, took the page with reluctance. Then he read it. Verses of this significance were new to him. Relief came to Lane in the divination that Bessy could not have had experience of what she had written. There was worldliness in the verse, but innocence in her eyes.
“Well, Bessy, my heart isn't much stronger than Miss Hill's,” he said, finally.
Her merry laughter rang out.
“Bessy, what will you do for me?”
“Anything.”
“Bring me every scrap of verse you have, every note you've got from boys and girls.”
“Shall I get them now?”
“Yes, if it's safe. Of course, you've hidden them.”
“Mama's out. I won't be a minute.”
Away she flew under the trees, out through the rose bushes, a white, graceful, flitting figure. She vanished. Presently she came bounding into sight again and handed Lane a bundle of notes.
“Did you keep back any?” he asked, as he tried to find pockets enough for the collection.
“Not one.”
“I'll go home and read them all. Then I'll meet you here to-night at eight o'clock.”
“But—I've a date. I'll break it, though.”
“With whom?”
“Gail and a couple of boys—kids.”
“Does your mother know?”
“I'd tell her about Gail, but that's all. We go for ice cream—then meet the boys and take a walk.”
“Bessy, you're not going to do that sort of thing any more.”
Lane bent over her, took her hands. She instinctively rebelled, then slowly yielded.
“That's part of our bargain?” she asked.
“Yes, it certainly is.”
“Then I won't ever again.”
“Bessy, I trust you. Do you understand me?”
“I—I think so.”
“Daren, will you care for me—if I'm—if I do as you want me to?”
“I do now,” he replied. “And I'll care a thousand times more when you prove you're really above these things.... Bessy, I'll care for you as a friend—as a brother—as a man who has almost lost his faith and who sees in you some hope to keep his spirit alive. I'm unhappy, Bessy. Perhaps you can help me—make me a little happier.... Anyway, I trust you. Good-bye now. To-night, at eight o'clock.”
Lane went home to his room and earnestly gave himself up to the perusal of the writings Bessy Bell had given him. He experienced shocks of pain and wonder, between which he had to laugh. All the fiendish wit of youthful ingenuity flashed forth from this verse. There was a parody on Tennyson's “Break, Break, Break,” featuring Colonel Pepper's famous and deplorable habit. Miss Hill came in for a great share of opprobrium. One verse, if it had ever come under the eyes of the good schoolteacher, would have broken her heart.
Lane read all Bessy's verses, and then the packet of notes written by Bessy's girl friends. The truth was unbelievable. Yet here were the proofs. Over Bessy and her friends Lane saw the dim dark shape of a ghastly phantom, reaching out, enfolding, clutching. He went downstairs to the kitchen and here he burned the writings.
“It ought to be told,” he muttered. “But who's going to tell it? Who'd believe me? The truth would not be comprehended by the mothers of Middleville.... And who's to blame?”
It would not do, Lane reflected, to place the blame wholly upon blind fathers and mothers, though indeed they were culpable. And in consideration of the subject, Lane excluded all except the better class of Middleville. It was no difficult task to understand lack of moral sense in children who were poor and unfortunate, who had to work, and get what pleasures they had in the streets. But how about the best families, where there were luxurious homes, books, education, amusement, kindness, love—all the supposed stimuli needed for the proper guidance of
