"Well, it's your own fault if it isn't. From what I hear he's just crazy to get you." Loretta paused a moment; she was ferreting for information. She seized Constance by the shoulders and fixed her again with her shrewd gaze. "You can't fool me, Constance Stuart. There's something in the wind. I shan't rest until I find out." Constance noticed that her cheeks were slightly flushed, and her eyes unnaturally bright. Could she have been drinking? Surely not, or her breath would have betrayed her. Doubtless it was only the excitement of deviltry awakened by feminine curiosity. Then it occurred to Constance to tell her. Was it not best to tell her? Loretta would make her life miserable, so she had intimated, if she concealed the truth. And then again, as she was sacrificing her love for a principle, why conceal from this other struggler the vital conclusion she had reached? It might help, or at least stimulate Loretta. She shrank from disclosing her precious secret, but now that she was interrogated, was it not the simplest, the most straightforward course to confess what had happened and explain her reason? "Sit down, Loretta, and I will tell you." The girl obeyed, surveying her with an exultant mien. Constance hesitated a moment. It was not easy to begin. "Mr. Perry and I have talked things over. Yes, Loretta, he did ask me to marry him." Loretta uttered what resembled a whoop of triumph, partly to celebrate her own perspicacity, partly by way of congratulation. "I felt sure of it. I knew he loved you by the way he was carrying on." "And I loved him, but I'm not going to marry him. We are to see no more of each other for the present. It would be wrong for me to become his wife." Loretta stared as though she could not believe her ears. "Wrong? Who says so? You don't mean to tell me you've refused him?" "Yes," said Constance a little sadly, for the genuineness of the surprise expressed recalled her own perplexity in discerning an adequate reason for the sacrifice. Loretta gasped. "Well, you are a fool, and no mistake! Refuse a man like that who's crazy to marry you and whom you love! Wrong? What's wrong about it?" [Illustration: "Refuse a man like that who's crazy to marry you!"] "It's contrary to the law of my church, which forbids a woman who has a husband living from marrying again." "But he's as good as dead so far as you're concerned," interjected Loretta. Without heeding this pertinent remark Constance proceeded to state the so-called spiritual objections with succinct fervor. She felt the desire to reiterate aloud their complete potency. Loretta listened closely, but with obvious bewilderment and disdain. Even now she seemed unable to credit her companion's announcement as genuine. "If your clergyman won't marry you, get a justice of the peace. That's just as good." Constance shook her head. "From my point of view remarriage would be sinful--impure."