"She hasn't any mother," Miss Lydia thought, sympathetically. "If you've quarreled, you and he," she said, putting her little roughened hand on Mary's soft, shaking fist, "tell him you're sorry. Kiss and make up!" Then she remembered why she and her William had not kissed and made up. "Unless"--she hesitated--"he has done something that isn't nice?" ("Nice" was Miss Lydia's idea of perfection.) "But I'm sure he hasn't! He seemed to me, when I saw him, a very pleasing young man. So kiss and make up!" The younger woman was not listening. "I had to wait all day to come and speak to you. I've been frantic--_frantic_--waiting! But I couldn't have anybody see me come. They would have wondered. If you don't help me--" "But I will, Mary, I will! Don't you love him?" "_Love_ him?" said the girl. "My God!" Then, in a whisper, "If I only hadn't loved him--_so much_. . . . I am going to have a baby." It seemed as if Miss Lydia's little friendly chirpings were blown from her lips in the gust of these appalling words. Mary herself was suddenly composed. "They sent him off to Mexico at twenty-four hours' notice; it was cruel--cruel, to send him away! and he came to say good-by-- And. . . . And then I begged and begged father to let us get married; even the very morning that he went away, I said: 'Let us get married to-day. Please, father, _please_!' And he wouldn't, he wouldn't! He wanted a big wedding. Oh, what did I care about a big wedding! Still--I never supposed-- But I went to Mercer yesterday and saw a doctor, and--and found out. I couldn't believe it was true. I said I'd die if it was true! And he said it was. . . . So then I rushed to Carl's office. . . . He was frightened--for me. And then we thought of you. And all day to-day I've just walked the floor--waiting to get down here to see you. I couldn't come until it was dark. Father thinks I'm in bed with a headache. I told the servants to tell him I had a headache. . . . We've got to manage somehow to make him let us get married right off. But--but even that won't save me. It will be known. It will be known--in January." Miss Lydia was speechless. "So you've got to help me. There's nobody else on earth who can. Oh, you must--you must!" "But what can I do?" Miss Lydia gasped. "Carl and I will go away somewhere. Out West where nobody knows us. And then you'll come. And you'll take--_It_. You'll take care of it. And you can have all the money you want." "My dear," Miss Lydia said, trembling, "this is very, very dreadful, but I--" The girl burst into rending crying. "Don't you--suppose _I_ know that it's--it's--it's dreadful?" "But I don't see how I can possibly--" "If you won't help me, I'll go right down to the river. Oh, Miss Lydia, help me! Please, _please_ help me!" "But it's impos--" Mary stopped crying. "It isn't. It's perfectly possible! You'll simply go away to visit some friends--" "I haven't any friends, except in Old Chester--"