"Martie," thundered her father, "when you went to Pittsville you saw your sister, didn't you?"

Martie's head was held erect. She was badly frightened, but conscious through all her fear that there was a certain satisfaction in having the blow fall at last.

"Yes, sir," she gulped; she wet her lips. "Yes, sir," she said again.

"You admit it?" said Malcolm, his eyes narrowing.

Lydia, pale and terrified, had come in from the kitchen. Now she suddenly spoke.

"Oh, Pa, don't--don't blame Martie for that! You know what the girls always were to each other--I don't mean to be impertinent, Pa--do forgive me!--but Martie and Sally always----"

"One moment, Lydia," said her father, with a repressive gesture, the veins blue on his forehead. "JUST--ONE--MOMENT." And, panting, he turned again to Martie. "Yes, and who else did you see in Pittsville?"

he whispered, his voice failing.

Martie, breathing fast, her bright eyes fixed upon him with a sort of fascination, did not answer.

"I'll tell you who you saw," said Malcolm at white heat. "I'll tell you! You met this young whippersnapper Jackanapes--what's his name--this young one-night actor----"

"Do you mean Mr. Wallace Bannister?" Martis asked with a sort of frightened scorn.

Lydia and her mother gasped audibly in the silence. Malcolm moved his eyes slowly from his youngest daughter's face to his wife's, to Lydia's, and back to Martie again. For two dreadful moments he studied her, an ugly smile touching his harsh mouth.

"You don't deny it," he said, after the interval, in a shaking voice.

"You don't deny that you've been disobeying me and lying to me for weeks? Now I tell you, my girl--there's been enough of this sort of thing going on in this family. You couldn't get the man you wanted, so, like your sister, you pick up----"

Martie laughed briefly and bitterly. The sound seemed to madden him.

For a moment he watched her, his head dropped forward like a menacing animal.

"Understand me, Martie," he said. "I'll break that spirit in you--if it takes the rest of my life! You'll laugh in a different way! My G.o.d--am I to be the laughing-stock of this entire town? Is a girl your age to----"

"Pa!" sobbed Mrs. Monroe. "Do what you think best, but don't--DON'T excite yourself so!"

Her clutching fingers on his arm seemed to soothe in through all his fury. He fell silent, still panting, and eying Martie belligerently.

"You--go to your room!" he commanded, pointing a shaking finger at her.

"Go upstairs with your sister, Lydia, and bring me the key of her door.

When I decide upon the measure that will bring this young lady quickest to her senses, I'll let her know. Meanwhile----"

"Oh, Pa, you needn't lock Martie in," quivered Lydia, "she'll stay--won't you, Martie?"

Martie, like a young animal at bay, stood facing them all for a breathless moment. In that time the child that had been in her, through all these years of slow development, died. Anger went out of her eyes, and an infinite sadness filled them. A quick tremble of her lips and a flutter at her nostrils were the only signs she gave of the tears she felt rising. She flung one arm about her mother and kissed the wet, faded cheek.

"Good-bye, Ma," she said quickly. In another instant she had crossed to the entrance hall, blindly s.n.a.t.c.hed an old soft felt hat from the rack, caught up Len's overcoat, and slipped into it, and was gone. Born in that moment of unreasoning terror, her free soul went with her.

The streets were flooded with hot summer sunshine, the sky almost white. Not a breeze stirred the thick foliage of the elm trees on Main Street as Martie walked quickly down to the Bank.

It was Rodney Parker who gave her her money; the original seventeen dollars and fifty cents had swelled to almost twenty-two dollars now.

Martie hardly saw the gallant youth who congratulated her upon her becoming gipsy hat; mechanically she slipped her money into a pocket, mechanically started for the road to Pittsville.

Five minutes later she boarded the half-past twelve o'clock trolley, coming in excited and exultant upon Sally who was singing quietly over a solitary luncheon. The girls laughed and cried together.

"The funny thing is, I am as free as air!" Martie exclaimed, her cheeks glowing from the tea and the sympathy and the warm room. "But I never knew it! If Pa had gotten on that trolley, I think I would have fainted with shock. But what could he do? I am absolutely FREE, Sally--with twenty-one dollars and eighty-one cents!"

"I wish you had a husband----" mused Sally.

"I'd rather have a job," Martie said with a quick, bright flush nevertheless. "But I think I know how to get one. Mrs. Cluett is going to be playing steadily now, and after this engagement they're going to try very hard to get booked in New York. She's got to have SOME ONE to look out for the children."

"But Martie----" Sally said timidly, "you'd only be a sort of servant----"

"Well, that's the only thing I know anything about," Martie answered simply. "It might lead to something----"

"Then you and Wallace aren't----?" Sally faltered. "There's nothing serious----?"

Martie could not control the colour that swept up to the white parting of her hair, but her mouth showed new firmness as she answered gravely:

"Sally--I don't know. Of course, I like him--how could I help it? We're awfully good chums; he's the best chum I ever had. But he never--well, he never asked me. Sally"--Martie rested her elbows on the table, and her chin on her hands--"Sally, would you marry him?"

"If I loved him I would," said Sally.

"Yes, but did you KNOW you loved Joe?" Martie asked. Sally was silent.

"Well--not so much--before--as after we were married," she said hesitatingly, after a pause.

Martie suddenly sprang up.

"Well, I'm going to see Mrs. Cluett!"

"I'll go, too," said Sally, "and we'll stop at the express office and tell Joe!"

Mrs. Cluett was alone with her children when the callers went in, and even Martie's sensitive heart could have asked no warmer reception of her plan.

The little actress kissed Sally, and kissed Martie more than once, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with interest and sympathy.

"Dearie, it ain't much of a start for you, but it is a start!" said Mabel warmly over the head of the nursing baby. "And you'll get your living and your railroad fares out of it, anyway! It'll be an ackshal G.o.dsend to Mr. Cluett and me, for the children have took to you something very unusual. We'll have elegant times going around together, and you'll never be sorry."

These cheering sentiments Jesse echoed when he came in with Lloyd a few minutes later.

"Much depends upon our future contracts, Miss Monroe," said he, "but I will go so far as to say this. Should you some time desire to try the calling that Shakespeare honoured, the opportunity will not be lacking!"

This threw Sally, Martie, and Mabel into transports. It now being after three o'clock tea was proposed.

And now Martie busied herself happily as one belonging to the little establishment. Sally had taken rapturous possession of Leroy. Mabel lighted the alcohol lamp. Martie, delayed by the affectionate Bernadette, shook out the spotted cloth, and cut the stale cake.

They were all absorbed and chattering when Wallace Bannister opened the door. At sight of him Martie straightened up, the long knife in one hand, Bernadette's sticky little fingers clinging to the other. The news was flung at him excitedly. Martie had left home--she was never going back--she had only twenty dollars and an old coat and hat--she was going to stay with Mabel for the present----

"What's this sweet dream about staying with Mabel?" Wallace said, bewildered, reproachful, definite. He came over to Martie and put one arm about her. "Look here, folks," he said, almost indignantly, "Martie's my girl, aren't you, Martie? We're going to be married right now, this afternoon; and hereafter what I do, she does--and where I go, she goes!"

The love in his eyes, the love in all their watching faces, Martie never forgot. Like a great river of warmth and sunshine it lifted her free of her dry, thirsty girlhood; she felt the tears of joy pressing against her eyes. There was nothing critical, nothing calculating, nothing repressing here; her lover wanted her, just as she stood, penniless, homeless, without a dress except the blue gingham she wore!