“I want to marry you, of course!” David flung the confession at her sternly. “I love you so much it’s torture to think of your going on to New York with the carnival. Oh, it’s all so hopeless! We’re in such a nasty jam, Sally, darling!” He groaned, snatched up her hands, kissed them hungrily, passionately, then dropped them as if the soft, sweet flesh stung his lips. “Don’t let me kiss you, Sally! For God’s sake! I can’t stand it! And it’s not fair to you to learn what love means, when—when we can’t go through with it.” “But why can’t we, David?” she persisted, her love giving her amazing boldness. “I’ll never love anyone else. I’ll wait for you, for years and years. Until I’m eighteen and you’re twenty-three. You’re almost twenty-one, aren’t you, David?” “Yes,” he acknowledged. “But I’m just a kid. Why, I’m a minor yet!” he reminded her with youth’s bitter shame. “And so are you. We couldn’t even get married legally. And we’re both—wanted—by the police. I can’t even figure out how I’m going to get back into A. & M. and finish my course. I couldn’t let you marry a man wanted for attempted murder, even if I could support you. Oh, I guess I could make a bare living for us, but I don’t want that! Not for you! I want you to have everything lovely in the world. You’ve had so little, so little! I want you to have silk and velvet to make you forget blue-and-white-checked gingham. I want—” he was going on passionately when Sally interrupted with her soft delicious little laugh. “I want David,” she said simply. “All right!” he cried, flinging his arms wide in a gesture of utter abandonment. “We’ll run away tonight. We’ll keep going until we get out of the state. We’ll lie about our ages. We’ll find someone somewhere to marry us, and we’ll—have each other if we have nothing else in the world, Sally!” His exultant young voice and his arms demanded her, but she held back strangely, while her face went ghastly white and old in the moonlight. “I—I forgot to tell you my news,” she said dully, tonelessly, her hands flattened against her breast. “Mrs. Bybee found out something about—about my mother, about me.” Ecstasy was wiped from David’s face, leaving it hurt and bewildered. “So you’re going to find her? Go back to her? I—I suppose I’m glad.” “No,” she shook her head drearily. “I can’t marry you or—anyone, David. My mother was not Mrs. Nora Ford. I don’t know who she was! I don’t even know what my name really is—if I have a name! Whoever my mother was she was ashamed I’d been born, she paid Mrs. Ford to take me away when I was an infant, away from New York, so—so I wouldn’t disgrace her. I’m the ugly name Nita called me today. I’m—I’m—”