"Who dared bring it to you?" he asked fiercely. "What are they saying, Dan?" "That you been seen out with him on the street, that you ride with him after night, and that he comes down here every day at the noon hour to see you." "Is that all?" "Ain't it enough?" "Well, it's true!" said Nance, defiantly. "Every word of it. If anybody can find any real harm in what I've done, they are welcome to it!" "It's true?" gasped Dan, his hands gripping a chair-back. "And you never told me? Has he--has he made love to you, Nance?" "Why, he makes love to everybody. He makes love to his mother when he wants to get something out of her. What he says goes in one ear and out the other with me. But I like him and I ain't ashamed to say so. He's give me the best time I ever had in my life, and you bet I don't forget it." "Will you answer me one thing more?" demanded Dan, sternly. "Yes; I ain't afraid to answer any question you can ask." "Was it Clarke that took you to the carnival ball?" "Him and a fellow named Monte Pearce." "Just you three?" "No; Birdie Smelts was along." Dan brushed his hand across his brow as if trying to recall something. "Birdie come here that day," he said slowly. "She wanted to see Clarke for a friend of hers. Nance did he--did he ever ask you to kiss him?" "Yes." Dan groaned. "Why didn't you tell me all this before, Nance? Why didn't you give me a chance to put you on your guard?" "I _was_ on my guard!" she cried, with rising anger. "I don't need anybody to take care of me!" But Dan was too absorbed in his own thoughts to heed her. "It's a good thing he's going away in a couple of days," he said grimly. "If ever the blackguard writes to you, or dares to speak to you again--" Nance had risen and was facing him. "Who's to stop him?" she asked furiously. "I'm the one to say the word, and not you!" "And you won't let me take it up with him?" "No!" "And you mean to see him again, and to write to him?" Nance had a blurred vision of an unhappy prodigal crossing the factory yard. He had kept his part of their compact; she must keep hers. "I will if I want to," she said rather weakly. Dan's face flushed crimson. "All right," he said, "keep it up if you like. But I tell you now, I ain't going to stay here to see it. I'm going to clear out!" He turned toward the door, and she called after him anxiously: "Dan, come back here this minute. Where are you going?" He paused in the doorway, his jaw set and a steady light in his eyes. "I am going now," he said, "to apologize to the man I hit yesterday for telling the truth about you!"