"I ask myself why Mr. Sorenson took it for granted that the engineer had been telling me false stories and if there was any ground for such fears," she went on. "He had nothing to be afraid of, no matter what might be said, if he had done nothing unworthy. I can't imagine Mr. Weir, for instance, being alarmed in that way." "They're telling plenty of lies about him, for that matter, but I guess it doesn't worry him any," Johnson said. "What I ask you touches a delicate subject, perhaps," Janet continued, reluctantly. "You may feel that I'm pushing in where I'm not concerned. But if Mr. Sorenson has done anything discreditable--if he has acted in a way to make me ashamed when I know, then it becomes a matter affecting my happiness too. I would never marry a man who had done something dishonorable, for if I did so knowingly I should be dishonored and dishonorable as well." Johnson suddenly thrust a brown forefinger at her. "Do you want to know what Sorenson did?" he demanded, wrathfully. Janet gripped her hands together. "Yes." "You'll not go spreading it all around the country? But I guess you won't as long as it would make you out a fool too. I'll not have Mary's name dragged about in a lot of gossip." "I assure you I shall remain silent, for her sake and my own." "All right, I'll tell you. You're too good a girl--any decent girl is--to marry Ed Sorenson. He met Mary at a dance last spring in town where she went with some friends of ours, and made love to her but wouldn't let her tell me or any one. We don't get to town so very often; she never knew he was engaged to marry you, there never happening to be any mention of it to her. Then he got her to go to Bowenville one day awhile ago, under promise to marry her there--Mary is only sixteen, a little girl yet. To me, anyway." Janet felt the working of his love in those simple words. Felt it but half-consciously, though, for her own soul was stifling at Ed Sorenson's revealed infamy. "When he got her there, he told her they would have to go away farther to be married--to Los Angeles." Again his finger came up, this time to be shaken at her like a hammer. "He never intended to marry her; he planned to get her there, ruin her, and cast her off. That's the sort of man you're going to marry!" "I remember he expected to be away for a couple of weeks--a business trip, he said. But afterwards he explained that it hadn't been necessary to go."