"Then don't say things that hurt me. Understand! If you did, you would know that it would make no difference if he was rotten clear through. But he's not. Fred never knew about the baby. He cried when he heard--cross my heart, he did. He said if he'd known--but what's the use of digging up the past! He is trying to make up for it now. He's been trying ever since we ran across each other again. It was in the cloak department he caught sight of me," she digressed with a pale smile. "I was wearing a white broadcloth, sable-trimmed evening wrap, and maybe he didn't stare! He couldn't do enough for me. That's where the new clothes came from. I could have had money if I'd wanted it--money to burn, for he makes a lot; but I wouldn't touch it. It would have looked--oh, you see for yourself I could not take money. You don't sell love, real love, and God knows mine is real! I've never stopped loving him. I never can." She, too, it appeared when she grew more calm, aspired to be mistress of a flat. "Though not at the start," she continued. "Fred wants to board at first. He says I've had work enough for one while. I said I shouldn't mind that kind of work, but he is dead set on boarding, till I've had a good long rest. Fred can be terrible firm. But by and by we're to keep house, and you'll be able to tell me just what to do and buy. You will, won't you, Jean?" she ended anxiously. "You'll stick by me?" "Yes," Jean promised. "And you'll come to see me--afterward? Say you'll come." "Yes, I'll come." "And you won't let Fred suspect that you've heard about--about everything? I want him to see that I know a girl like you. I've talked to him about you, but I've never let on that you're a refuge girl yourself. Promise me you will be nice to him!" "I'll try." Amy kissed her fervently. "This makes me awful happy," she sighed. "I think a heap of you, Jean. Honest, I do. You come next to Fred." As a proof of her affection she presently bought a wedding gift of a pair of silver candelabra which she could ill afford, and which Jean accepted only because she must. These went to flank Grimes's gift--for he was party to the secret now--a glittering timepiece for their mantel, densely infested with writhing yet cheerful Cupids, after the reputed manner of his admired "Lewis Quince." Mrs. St. Aubyn's contribution was a framed galaxy of American poets: Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, and Walt Whitman, the last looking rakishly jocular at the Brahminical company in which he found himself thus canonized.