I couldn't say a word to that. It went through me like a knife-cut. I was glad that Old Man Wright wasn't there to hear it. I seen then that him and me had failed. We could never play no other game, for this was the only girl we had. "You've brought me here," says she, "and I've been like a prisoner. But I've done all I could." "Didn't you like it here?" says I. "We done considerable on your account. Don't you like us none?" "Like you, Curly?" says she. "I love you! I love you!" She come now and taken me by the shoulders and shook me. I didn't know she was so strong before. "I love you--love both of you," says she. "I'd die for you any minute," says she. "I'd try to cut my heart out for either of you now--if it come to that. I tried it now, tonight. I tried it for an hour--two hours. I didn't know what it meant before." "He ast you, Bonnie?" says I. "Yes, yes," says she. "The poor boy! I like him so much--I pity him." "My Gawd! Bonnie, you haven't refused him?" say I. "You haven't done that? You haven't broke the pore fellow's heart?" says I. "Why did you----" "Why did you!" says she after me. "I told you he made it plain to me." "What was it he made plain, Bonnie?" says I. "I suppose he, now, made some sort of love? It ain't for me to talk of that." "Yes, yes!" She says it out sharp and high. "He did. I know now what it means to be a woman and in love. I never knew that before. But it wasn't--it wasn't for him! He held me--I was a woman--and it wasn't for him. How can I love---- What can I do? Why, I love you all, Curly--I love you all! I love Tom in one way; and I'm sorry, because he's good. But that isn't being a woman. It wasn't for him--it wasn't for him!" She was sort of whispering by now. "So he went right away?" says I. She nodded. "Maybe I've broken his heart. I've broken yours and my father's and my own--all because I couldn't help being a woman. And I'm the unhappiest woman in all the world. I want to die! I don't know what to do. I want to be square and I don't know how." "Bonnie," says I after a while, slow, "I know all about it now. You've been plumb crazy and you're crazy now. You've kept on remembering that low-down sneak next door. You've turned down a high-toned gentleman like Tom--and you done it for what? You ain't acted on the square, Bonnie Bell Wright," says I. "It ain't needful for me to tell all I know about him now. I could tell you plenty more." "No," says she, and she was crying now; "it was an evil thing of me ever to listen to him. I've done wrong," says she. "But what must I do?" says she, "Must I lie all my life? I can't do that." [Illustration: "'I know now what it means to be a woman and in love.'"]