There was no car in sight when he reached the corner--no car and no waiting figure. One nearly always waited to the worn limits of one's patience on this particular corner, as Mr. Everett already knew from frequent experience. Traffic was light in this modest, detached suburb, and the traveling public correspondingly meek and long-suffering. But occasionally one did "catch" a car, despite the infrequency of the phenomenon. If Jane had gone--actually gone away into the great, wide, cruel world, how could he ever find her? And not to find Jane meant an aching desolation of spirit which already gripped him by the throat and forced the salt drops to his eyes. "I _will_ find her!" said John Everett to himself; and then, all at once, he found her. She was standing under the sparse shelter of a newly leaved tree, her eyes shining big and tearless in the cold, white light of the shuddering arc-light. "Jane!" cried John Everett. "Thank God I have found you, Jane!" The girl looked up at him quietly. She did not reply; but the sight of his agitated face seemed to stir some frozen current of life within her. She sighed; then colored painfully over all her fair face. "She has told you," she said, "and you----" "I love you, Jane," he said impetuously. "I want you to be my wife. O Jane dear, dear girl, don't turn away from me!" "The car is coming," she said faintly. "You must not--oh, good-by, good-by!" The brightly lighted car groaned and squeaked painfully to a standstill, and he helped her to mount the high step. "Good-by," she murmured again; but when she looked up he was still at her side, feeling mechanically in his pocket for fares. "You must not go with me," she said firmly. "People will see you, and--and--I should prefer to be alone." John Everett set his square American jaw. "I am sorry," he said briefly, "but I am going to see you to a place of safety somewhere. And to-morrow----" "I do not need you," she said pointedly. "I am going to my friend, Miss Forbes, in New York." "Very well," he agreed, "I will see you to your friend's house." She did not once look at him till they had found places in a secluded corner on the ferryboat deck. Then she spoke again. "I wish," she said gently, "that you would leave me." John Everett looked down at her. "Jane," he said abruptly, "are you already married?" "Why--why, no," she stammered. "Of course not!" "Do you love another man?" "No. But"--haughtily--"you have no right to ask me." "I beg your pardon, Jane, but I have. Remember that I have asked you to be my wife." "I am," said Jane, coldly and incisively, "a perfect stranger to you. At present I am a disgraced servant, leaving my place because I am accused of being--_a thief_." "Jane, look at me!" She obeyed him proudly. "You are the woman I love, dear. I have loved you ever since I saw you that first day. I shall never love anyone else in the whole world. Oh, my poor darling, _don't_ turn away from me; _try_ to love me a little!"