Very deliberately she climbed the stairs, passed along the hall, and entered her room. She closed the door behind her and walked, like one in a dream, to the window. For several minutes she stared unseeingly out into the sunlit world, her hands strained together at her breast and her heart fluttering chokingly. The door of understanding had opened and the sudden light bewildered her. But gradually things took shape. With a little sound that was half gasp, half moan, she turned and fell to her knees at the foot of her bed, her tightly-clasped hands thrown out across the snowy quilt and her cheek pillowed on one arm. Tears welled slowly from under her closed lids and seeped scorchingly through her sleeve. “Don’t let me, dear God,” she sobbed, miserably, “don’t let me! You don’t want me to be unhappy, do you? You know he’s a married man and a Northerner! And I didn’t know, truly I didn’t know until just now! It would be wicked to love him, wouldn’t it? And you don’t want me to be wicked, do you? And you’ll take him away, dear God, where I won’t see him again, ever, ever again? You know I’m only just Holly Wayne and I need your help. You mustn’t let me love him! You mustn’t, you mustn’t....” She knelt there a long time, feeling very miserable and very wicked,――wicked because in spite of her prayers, which had finally trailed off into mingled sobs and murmurs, her thoughts flew back to Winthrop and her heart throbbed with a strange, new gladness. Oh, how terribly wicked she was! It seemed to her that she had lied to God! She had begged Him to take Winthrop away from her and yet her thoughts sought him every moment! She had only to close her own eyes to see his, deep and dark, looking down at her, and to read again their wonderful, fearsome message; to feel again the straining clasp of his arms about her and the hurried thud of his heart against her breast! She felt guilty and miserable and happy. She wondered if God would hear her prayer and take him away from her. And suddenly she realized what that would mean. Not to see him again――ever! No, no; she couldn’t stand that! God must help her to forget him, but He mustn’t take him away. After all, was it so horribly wicked to care for him as long as she never let him know? Surely no one would suffer save herself? And she――well, she could suffer. It came to her, then, that perhaps in this new world of hers it was a woman’s lot to suffer. Her thoughts flew to her mother. She wondered if such a thing had ever happened to her. What would she have done had she been in Holly’s place? Holly’s tears came creeping back again; she wanted her mother very much just then....