The older woman returned the embrace. "Play with your mates!" she heard in her ears. "Grasp whatever of happiness you can." "Have you money?" she questioned. "Yes, enough for my education." "Oh, how will I ever get along with you away!" And with this cry Kathleen put out the light and went away to a difficult and sorrowful night. When she returned on Wednesday evening, snatching a few hours from her harassing case, she hurried up the stairs and into the front room. One glance told her that her friend had left. The framed picture was there and the curtains that Hertha had bought and made herself. On the table was the magazine out of which she had read a story the week before; but the room was desolate, for in the alcove all the little things that belonged to a young girl's dress were missing. The stiff, unnatural order of bed and bureau mocked the looker-on. Going into the kitchen, Kathleen saw a letter addressed to herself, but she made no attempt to read it. Wearily entering her bedroom, she changed her gown and more wearily returned to cook her dinner. The water hissed at her in the kettle as she set her solitary place. "Why does everybody leave me just when I've learned to love them?" she asked herself. And, receiving no answer, she sat down in the rocker by the red geraniums and buried her face in her hands. III DICK CHAPTER XXV "What shall we do this evening?" "I shall be studying." "Oh, rot; don't work so hard." It was morning in mid-May and Dick Brown was standing in the hallway of Mrs. Pickens' boarding-house, his hat set back on his head, turning for the last word with Hertha before he left for his day's task. It was a grief to him that they did not leave together; but, though she finished breakfast when he did, and had but a few minutes leeway beyond his time of departure, she was never ready when the minute came that he must go. So he stopped this morning to ask his question, knowing the answer, since he had received it the night before, but anxious to hold the young girl in conversation before he turned into the engrossing world of business that drove her from his thoughts. And yet, even when he was most concentrated on some perplexing detail associated with the handling of fancy trimmings, she would be back in his mind, far back where he might not turn to her and yet where, when the hour came that released him from the bondage of the city's trade, she was present--her brown eyes, to his fancy, looking at him with more favor than they had yet shown. "Well, good-by," he said, grasping the doorknob. "Good-by," she answered, and turned upstairs to her room.