"I understand perfectly, Mrs. Terriberry. You like me--you like me very much, but you are one kind of a coward, and of what value is a coward's friendship or regard? I don't mean to be impertinent--I'm just trying to explain how I feel. In your heart you believe in me, but you are afraid--afraid of public opinion--afraid of being left out of the teas and card parties which mean more to you than I do. You've known me all my life and fail me at the first test." "I hate to hear you talk like that; it doesn't sound like Essie Tisdale." But in her heart she knew the girl was right. She was a coward; she had not the requisite courage to set her face against the crowd, but must needs turn and run with them while every impulse and instinct within her pulled the other way. "Doesn't it?" The girl smiled bitterly. "Why should it? Can't you see--don't you understand that you've helped kill _that_ Essie Tisdale--that blundering, ignorant Essie Tisdale who liked everybody and believed in everybody as she thought they liked and believed in her?" "Dear me! oh, dear me!" Mrs. Terriberry rubbed her forehead and groaned pathetically. Any consecutive line of thought outside the usual channels pulled Mrs. Terriberry down like a spell of sickness. She looked jaded from the present conversation and her thoughts ran together bewilderingly. "I know to-night how an outlaw feels when the posse's at his heels and he rides with murder in his heart," the girl went on with hardness in her young voice. "I know to-night why he makes them pay dear for his life when he takes his last stand behind a rock." "Oh, Essie, don't!" Mrs. Terriberry wrung her garnet and moonstone-ringed fingers together in distress. "You mustn't get reckless!" "What real difference does it make to you or anybody else how I get?" she demanded fiercely, and added: "You are showing me how much when you advertise to all the town by turning me out that you believe their evil tongues." "I'm goin' to talk to Hank again----" but Essie stopped her with a vehement gesture. "You needn't. I don't want pity, I tell you, I don't want favors. I am going to-morrow. There is some way out. There is a place in the world for me somewhere and I'll find it." She turned away and walked toward the corral where the black omnibus horses nickered softly at her coming, while Alphonse and Gaston stood on their hind legs and squealed a vociferous welcome. "My only friends----" and she smiled bitterly. She winced when she saw a new face passing the kitchen door and realized that Mr. Terriberry already had filled her place. It was only one small thing more, but it brought again the feeling that the world was sinking beneath her feet.