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EXIT BETTY








EVERYTHING SEEMED TO S“’lM BEFORE HER FOR A MOMENT


Paae 167




EXIT BETTY
BY
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL
(MRS. LUTZ) .
AUTHOR OF
MARCIA SCHUYLER, THE SEARCH.
DAWN OF TI-IE MORNING, ETC.
FRONTISPIECE BY
H. WESTON TAYLOR
(‘XX
4 \
1‘ ‘Q
GROSSET 8: DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK


Mnd:intheUniu=dSmao£Amsia
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OOPYRIGHT, I919, BY THE CHBIITLAH HERALD
XPYBIGHT, I920, BY J. B. LIPPIICOTT COHIIIY
I
£
I





EXIT BETTY
CHAPTER I
THE crowd gave way and the car glided smoothly
up to the curb at the canopied entrance to the church.
The blackness of the wet November night was upon
the street. It had rained at intervals all day.
The pavements shone wetly like new paint in
the glimmer of the street lights, and rude shadows
gloomed in every cranny of the great stone building.
Betty, alone in the midst of her bridal finery,
shrank back from the gaze of the curious onlookers,
seeming very small like a thing of the air caught in
a mesh of the earth.
She had longed all day for this brief respite from
everyone, but it had passed before she could concen-
trate her thoughts. She started forward, a flame
of rose for an instant in her white cheeks, but gone as
quickly. Her eyes reminded one of the stars among
the far-away clouds on a night of fitful storm, with
only glimpses of their beauty in breaks of the over-
cast sky. Her small hands gripped one another ex-
citedly, and the sweet lips were quivering.
7 ..


8 EXIT BETTY
A white-gloved hand reached out to open the car
door, and other hands caught and cared for the billow_
of satin and costly lace with which she was sur-
rounded, as if it, and not she, were the important one.
They led her up the curtained Way, where envious
eyes peeped through a furtive rip in the canvas, or
craned around an opening to catch a better glimpse
of her loveliness, one little dark-eyed foreigner even
reached out‘ a grimy, wondering finger to the silver
whiteness of her train; but she, all unknowing, trod
the carpeted path as in a dream.
The Wedding march was just beginning. She
caught the distant notes, felt the hush as she ap-
proached the audience, and wondered why the ordeal
seemed so much greater now that she was actually
come to the moment. If she had known it would be
like this—! Oh, why had she given in!
The guests had risen and were stretching their
necks for the first vision of her. The chaplet of
costly blossoms sat upon her brow and bound her
wedding veil floating mistily behind, but the lovely
head was bowed, not lifted proudly as a bride’s
should be, and the little white glove that rested on
the arm of the large florid cousin trembled visibly.
The cousin was almost unknown until a few hours
before. His importance overpowered her. She


EXIT BETTY 9
drooped her eyes and tried not to wish for the quiet,
gray-haired cousin of her own mother. It was so
strange for him to have failed her at the last mo-
ment, when he had promised long ago to let nothing
hinder him from giving her away if she should ever
be married. His telegram, “ Unavoidably detained,”
had been received but an hour before. He seemed
the only one of her kind, and now she was all alone.
All the rest were like enemies, although they pro-
fessed deep concern for her welfare; for they were
leagued together against all her dearest wishes, until
she had grown weary in the combat.
She gave a frightened glance behind as if some
intangible thing were following her. Was it a
hounding dread that after all she would not be free
after marriage?
With measured tread she passed the long white-
ribboned way, under arches that she never noticed,
through a sea of faoes that she never saw, to the
altar smothered in flowers and tropical ferns. It
seemed interminable. Would it never end? They
paused at last, and she lifted frightened eyes to the
florid cousin, and then to the face of her bridegroom!
It was a breathless moment, and but for the deep
tones of the organ now hushing for the ceremony,
one of almost audible silence. N 0 lovelier bride had


10 EXIT BETTY
trod those aisles in many a long year; so exquisite,
so small, so young—and so exceeding rich! The
guests were entranced, and every eye was greedily
upon her as the white-robed minister advanced with
his open book.
“ Beloved, we are met together to-night to join
this man——! ”
At that word they saw the bride suddenly, softly
sink before them, a little white heap at the altar, with
the white face turned upward, the white eyelids
closed, the long dark lashes sweeping the pretty
cheek, the wedding veil trailing mistily about her
down the aisle, and her big bouquet of white roses
and maiden-hair ferns clasped listlessly in the white-
gloved hands.
For a moment no‘ one stirred, so sudden, so un-
expected it was. It all seemed an astonishing part
of the charming spectacle. The gaping throng with
startled faces stood and stared. Above the huddled
little bride stood the bridegroom, tall and dark and
frowning, an angry red surging through his hand-
some face. The white-haired minister, with two red
spots on his fine scholarly cheeks, stood grave with
troubled dignity, as though somehow he meant to
hold the little still bride responsible for this unseemly
break in his beautiful service. The organ died away


EXIT BETTY 11
with a soft crash of the keys and pedals as if they
too leaped up to see; the scent of the lilies swept sick-
eningly up in a great wave on the top of the silence.
In a moment all was confusion. The minister
stooped, the best man sprang into the aisle and lifted
the flower-like head. Some one produced a fan, and
one of the ushers hurried for a glass of water. A
physician struggled from his pew across the sittings
of three stout dowagers, and knelt, with practiced
finger on the little fluttering pulse. The bride’s St€P|-
mother roused to solicitous and anxious attention.
The organ came smartly up again in a hopeless tangle
of chords and modulations, trying to get its poise
once more. People climbed upon their seats to see,
or crowded out in the aisle curiously and unwisely
kind, and in the way. Then the minister asked the
congregation to be seated; and amid the rustle of
wedding finery into seats suddenly grown too narrow
and too low, the ushers gathered up the little inert
bride and carried her behind the palms across a hall
and into the vestry room. The stepmother and a
group of friends hurried after, and the minister re-
quested the people to remain quietly seated for a few
minutes. The organ by this time had recovered its
poise and was playing soft tender melodies, but the
excited audience was not listening:


12 EXIT BETTY
“I thought she looked ghastly when she came
in,” declared the mother of three frowsy daughters.
“ It’s strange she didn’t put on some rouge.”
“ Um-mm! What a pity! I suppose she isn’t
strong! What did her own mother die of? ” mur-
mured another speculatively, preparing to put forth
a theory before any one else got ahead of her.
“ Oh! The poor child! ” sympathized a romantic
friend. “ They’ve been letting her do too much!
Didn’t they make a handsome couple? I’m crazy to
see them come marching down the aisle. They surely
wouldn’t put off the wedding just for a faint,
would they?”
And all over the church some woman began to tell
how her sister’s child, or her br0ther’s niece, or her
nephew’s aunt had fainted just before her wedding
or during it, till it began to seem quite a common per-
formance, and one furnishing a unique and interest-
ing part of the program for a wedding ceremony.
Meanwhile on a couch in the big gloomy vestry
room lay Betty with a group of attendants about her.
Her eyes were closed, and she made no move She
swallowed the aromatic ammonia that some one pro-
duced, and she drew her breath a little less feebly,
but she did not open her eyes, nor respond when
they spoke to her.


EXIT BETTY 13
Her stepmother stooped over finally and spoke
in her ear:
“ Elizabeth Stanhope! sit up and control your-
self!” she said sharply in a low tone. “ You are
making a spectacle of yourself that you can never
get over. Your father would be ashamed of you if
he were here! ”
It was the .one argument that had been held
a successful lash over her poor little quivering heart
for the last five years, and Betty flashed open her
sorrowful eyes and looked around on them with a
troubled concentration as if she were just taking in
what had happened:
“ I’m so tired! ” she said in a little weary voice.
“ Won’t you just let me get my breath a minute? ”
The physician nodded emphatically toward the
door and motioned them out:
“ She’ll be all right in just a minute. Step out-
side and give her a chance to get calm. She’s only
worn out with excitement.”
She opened her eyes and looked furtively about
the room. There was no one there, and the door was
closed. She could hear them murmuring in low
tones just beyond it. She looked wildly about her
with a frantic thought of escape. The two windows
were deeply curtained, giving a narrow glimpse of


l4 EXIT BETTY
blank wall. She sprang softly to her feet and looked
out. There was a stone pavement far below. She
turned silently and tried a door. It opened into a
closet overflowing with musty hymn-books. She
closed it quickly and slipped back to her couch just
in time as the door opened and the doctor came back.
She could catch a glimpse of the others through the
half open door, anxiously peering in. She gathered
all her self-control and spoke:
“ I’m all right now, Doctor,” she said quite
calmly. “ Would you just ask them to send Besse-
mer here a minute? ”
“ Certainly.” The doctor turned courteously and
went back to the door, half closing it and making
her request in a low tone. Then her stepmother’s
excited sibilant whisper:
“ Bessemer! Why, he isn’t here! He went
down to the shore last night.”
“ Sh-h-h!” came another voice, and the door
was shut smartly.
Betty’s eyes grew wide with horror as she lay
staring at the closed door, and a cold numbness
seemed to envelop her, clutching at her throat, her
heart and threatening to overwhelm her.
Bessemer not here! What could it mean? Her
mind seemed unable to grasp and analyze the name-


EXIT BETTY 15
less fear that awaited her outside that door. In a
moment more they would all swarm in and surround
her, and begin to clamor for her to go back into that
awful church—and she could n0t—EvERl She would
far rather die!
She sprang to her feet again and glided noise-
lessly to the only remaining uninvestigated door in
the room. If this was another closet she would
shut herself inside and stay till she died. She had
read tales of people dying in a small space from
lack of air. At least, if she did not die she could
stay here till she had time to think. There was a
key in the lock. Her fingers closed‘ around it and
drew it stealthily from the keyhole, as she slid
through the door, drawing her rich draperies ruth-
lessly after. Her fingers were trembling so that she
scarcely could fit the key in the lock again and
turn it, and every click of the metal, every creak of
the door, sounded like a gong in her ears. Her heart
was fluttering wildly and the blood seemed to be
pouring in torrents behind her ear-drums. She could
not be sure whether there were noises in the room she
had just left or not. She put her hand over her
heart, turned with a sickening dread to look about her
prison, and behold, it was not a closet at all, but a
dark landing to a narrow flight of stone steps that


EXIT BETTY 17
her balance. At least she was safe for a; moment
and could get her breath. But where could she go?
She looked about her. High walls arose on either
hand, with a murky sky above. A stone walk filled
the space between and ran down the length of the
church to a big iron gate. The lights of the street
glistened fitfully on the puddles of wet in the depres-
sions of the paving-stones. The street looked quiet,
and only one or two people were passing. Was that
gate locked also, and if so could she ever climb it,
or break through? Somehow she must! She shud-
dered at the thought of what would happen if she did
not get away at once. She strained at the buttons
on her soft white gloves and pulled the fingers off,
slipping her hands out and letting the glove hands
hang limp at her wrists. Then with a quick glance
backward at a flicker of light that appeared wavering
beyond the glass door, she gathered her draperies
again and fled down the long stone walk. Silently,
lightly as a ghost she passed, and crouched at the
gate as she heard footsteps, her heart beating so
loudly it seemed like a bell calling attention to her.
An old man was shuffling past, and she shrank
against the wall, yet mindful of the awful glass door
back at the end of the narrow passage. If they should
come now she could not hope to elude them!
2


18 EXIT BETTY
She stooped and studied the gate latch. Yes, it
was a spring lock, and had no key in it. Stealthily
she tried it and found to her relief that it swung open.
She stepped around it and peered out. The gateway
was not more than a hundred feet from the brightly
lighted corner of the main avenue where rows of
automobiles were lined up Waiting for the wedding
ceremony to be over. She could see the chauffeurs
walking back and forth and chatting together. She
could hear the desultory wandering of the organ,
too, from the partly open window near by. A faint
sickening waft of lily sweetness swept out, mingled
with a dash of drops from the maple tree on the
sidewalk. In a panic she stepped forth and drew
back again, suddenly realizing for the first time what
it would be to go forth into the streets clad in her
wedding garments? How could she do it and get
away? It could not be done!
Down the street, with a backward, wistful glance
at the church, hurried a large woman with a market
basket. Her curious eyes shone in the evening light
and darkness of the street. There was something
about her face that made Betty know instantly, that
this woman would love to tell how she had seen her,
would gather a crowd in no time and pursue her.
She shrank farther back, and then waited in awful


CHAPTER II
THE girl came to a standstill abruptly and faced
about, drawing away just a hair’s-breadth from the
detaining hand, and surveying her steadily, the boy-
ish expression in her eyes changing to a.n amused cal-
culation such as one would fancy a cowboy held
up on his native plains by a stray lamb might
have worn.
“ What’s the little old idea! ” asked the girl
coldly, her eyes narrowing as she studied the other
girl in detail and attempted to classify her into the
known and unknown quantities of her world. Her
face was absolutely expressionless as far as any sign
of interest or sympathy was concerned. It was like
a house with the door still closed and a well-trained
butler in attendance.
“ I’ve got to get away from here at once before
anybody sees me,” whispered Betty excitedly, with a
fearful glance behind her.
“Do you want me to call a cab for you?”
sneered the girl on the sidewalk, with an envious
glance at the white satin slippers.
“ Oh, no! Never!” cried Betty, wringing her
hands in desperation. “ I want you to show me
90


EXIT BETTY 21
somewhere -to go out of sight, and if you will
I’d like you to walk a block or so with me so I
won’t be so—so conspicuous! I’m so frightened
I don’t know which way to go.”
“ What do you want to go at all for? ” asked
the girl bluntly, with the look of an inquisitor, and
the intolerance of the young for its contemporary
of another social class.
“ Because I must! ” said Betty with terror in her
voice. “ They’re coming! Listen! Oh, help me
quick! I can’t wait to explain! ”
Betty dashed out of the gate and would have
started up the street but that a strong young arm
came out like a flash and a firm young fist gripped her
arm like a vise. The girl’s keen ears had caught
a sound of turning key and excited voices, and her
quick eyes pierced the darkness of the narrow court
and measured the distance back.
“ Here! You can’t go togged out like that!”
she ordered in quite a different tone. She flung off
her own long coat and threw it around the shrinking
little white figure, then knelt and deftly tu.rned up
the long satin draperies out of sight and fixed them
firmly with a pin extracted from somewhere about
her person. Quickly she stood up and pulled ofi her
rubbers, her eye on the long dark passageway whence


22 EXIT BETTY
came now the decided sound of a forcibly opened
door and footsteps.
“ Put these on, quick! ” she whispered, lifting
first one slippered foot and then the other and sup-
porting the trembling Betty in her strong young
arms, while she snapped on the rubbers.
Lastly, she jerked the rakish hat from her own
head, crammed it down hard over the orange-
wreathed brow and gave her strange protégée a
hasty shove.
“ Now beat it around that corner and wait till I
come! ” she whispered, and turning planted herself
in an idle attitude just under the church window,
craning her neck and apparently listening to the
music. A second later an excited usher, preceded by
the janitor, came clattering down the passageway.
“ Have you seen any one go out of this gate
recently? ” asked the usher.
The girl, hatless and coatless in the chill Novem-
ber night, turned nonchalantly at the question, sur-
vcyed the usher coolly from the point of his patent
leather shoes to the white gardenia in his buttonhole,
gave his features a cursory glance, and then shook
her head.
“ There might have been an old woman come out
a while back. Dressed in black, was she? I wasn’t


EXIT BETTY 23
paying much attention. I think she went down the
avenoo,” she said, and stretched her neck again,
standing on her tiptoes to view the wedding guests.
Her interest suddenly became real, for she spied a
young man standing in the church, in full view of
the window, back against the wall with his arms
folded, a fine handsome young man with pleasant
eyes and a head like that of a young nobleman, and
she wanted to make sure of his identity. He looked
very much like the young lawyer whose office boy
was her “ gentleman friend.” Just to make sure she
gave a little spring from the sidewalk that brought
her eyes almost on a level with the window and gave
her a brief glimpse, enough to see his face quite
clearly; then she turned with satisfaction to see that
the janitor and the usher had gone back up the
passageway, having slammed the gate shut. With-
out more ado the girl wheeled and hurried down
the street toward the corner where Betty crouched
behind a tree trunk, watching fearfully for
her coming.
“ Aw! You don’t need to be that scared! ” said
the girl, coming up. “They’ve gone back. I threw
’em off the scent. Come on! We’ll go to my room
and see what to do. Don’t talk! Somebody might
recognize your voice. Here, we’ll cut through this


EXIT BETTY 25
then hurried on after her hostess, who was mounting
up, one, two, three flights, to a tiny hall bedroom
at the back. A fleeting fear that perhaps the place
was not respectable shot through her heart, but her
other troubles were so great that it found no lodg-
meat. Panting and trembling she arrived at the top
and stood looking about her in the dark, while the
other girl found a match and lighted another wicked
little flickering gas-burner.
Then her hostess drew her into the room and
closed and locked the door. As a further precau-
tion she climbed upon a chair and pushed the tran-
som shut.
“-Now,” she said with a sigh of evident relief,
“ we’re safe! No one can hear you here, and you
can say what you please. But first we’ll get this coat
and hat ofi and see what’s the damage.”
As gently as if she were undressing a baby the
girl removed the hat and coat from her guest, a.nd
shook out the wonderful shining folds of satin. It
would have been a study for an artist to have
watched her face as she worked, smoothing out
wrinkles, shaking the lace down and uncrushing it,
straightening a bruised orange-blossom, and putting
everything in place. It was as if she herself were an
artist restoring a great masterpiece, so silently and


26 EXIT BETTY
absorbedly she worked, her eyes full of a glad won-
der that it had come to her once to be near and
handle anything so rare and costly. The very touch
of the lace and satin evidently thrilled her; the breath
of the exotic blossoms was nectar as she drew it in.
Betty was still panting from her climb, still
trembling from her flight, and she stood obedient and
meek while the other girl pulled and shook and
brushed and patted her into shape again. When
all was orderly and adjusted about the crumpled
bride, the girl stood back as far as the limits of the
tiny room allowed and surveyed the finished picture.
“ There now! You certainly do look great!
That there band of flowers round your forehead
makes you look like some queen. ‘ Coronet ’—ain’t
that what they call it? I read that once in a story
at the Public Library. Say! Just to think I should
pick that up in the street! Good night! I’m glad
I came along just then instead 0’ somebody else!
This certainly is some picnic! Well, now, give us
your dope. It must ’ve been pretty stiff to make you
cut and run from a show like the one they got up for
you! Come, tune up and let’s hear the tale. I rather
guess I’m entitled to know before the curtain goes up
again on this little old stage! ”
The two tears that had been struggling with


EXIT BETTY 27
Betty for a long time suddenly appeared in her eyes
and drowned them out, and in dismay she brought
out a faint little sorry giggle of apology and amuse
ment and dropped on the tiny bed, which filled up a
good two-thirds of the room.
“ Good night! ” exclaimed the hostess in alarm,
springing to catch her. “ Don’t drop down that
way in those glad rags! You’ll finish ’em! Come,
stand up and we’ll get ’em off. You look all in. I’d
oughta known you would be!” She lifted Betty
tenderly and began to remove her veil and unfasten
the wonderful gown. It seemed to her much like
helping an angel remove her wings for a nap. Her
eyes shone with genuine pleasure as she handled the
hooks deftly.
“ But I’ve nothing else to put on! ” gurgled
Betty helplessly.
“ I have! ” said the other girl.
“ Oh! ” said Betty with a sudden thought. “ I
wonder! Would you be willing to exchange clothes ?
Have you perhaps got some things you don’t need
that I could have, and I’ll give you mine for. them?
I don’t suppose perhaps a wedding dress would be
very useful unless you’re thinking of getting mar-
ried soon, but you could make it over and use it for
the foundation of an evening dress;-”


28 EXIT BETTY
The other girl was carefully folding the white
satin skirt at the moment, but she stopped with it
in her arms and sat down weakly on the foot of the
bed with it all spread out in her lap and looked at
her guest in wonder:
“ You don’t mean you wantta give it up! ” she
said in an awed tone. “ You don’t mean you would
be willing to take some of my old togs for it? ”
“I certainly would! ” cried Betty eagerly. “ I
never want to see these things again! I hate them!
And besides, I want to get away somewhere. I ca.n’t
go in white satin! You know that! But I don’t like
to take anything of yours that you might need. Do
you think these things would be worth anything
to you? You weren’t thinking of getting married
yourself some time soon, were you? ”
“ Well, I might,” said the other girl, looking self-
conscious. “ I got a gentleman friend. But I wasn’t
expectin’ to get in on any trooso like this!” She
let her finger move softly over the satin hem as if
she had been offered a plume of the angel’s wing.
“ Sure, I’ll take it off you if I’ve got anything you’re
satisfied to have in exchange. I wouldn’t mind
havin’ it to keep jest to look at now and then and
know it’s mine. It’cl be somethin’ to live for, jest to
know you had that dress in the house! ”


EXIT BETTY 29
Suddenly Betty, without any warning even to
herself, dropped upon her knees beside the diminu-
tive bed and began to weep. It seemed somehow
so touching that a thing like a mere dress could make
a girl glad like that. All the troubles of the days
that were past went over her in a great wave of
agony, and overwhelmed her soul. In soft silk and
lace petticoat and camisole with her pretty white arms
and shoulders shaking with great sobs she buried
her face in the old patchwork quilt that her hostess
had brought from her village home, and gave way
to a grief that had been long in growing. The other
girl now thoroughly alarmed, laid the satin on a chair
and went over to the little stranger, gathering her
up in a strong embrace, and gradually lifting her to
the bed.
“You poor little Kid, you! I oughtta known
better! You’re just all in! You ben gettin’ ready
to be married, and something big’s been troubling
you, and I bet they never gave you any lunch—er
else you wouldn’t eat it,—and you’re jest natcheraly
all in. Now you lie right here an’ I’ll make you
some supper. My name’s Jane Carson, and I’ve got
a good mother out to Ohio, and a nice home if I’d
had sense enough to stay in it; only I got a chanct
to make big money in a fact’ry. But I know what ’tis


30 \ EXIT BETTY
to be lonesome, an’ I ain’t hard-hearted, if I do
know how to take care of misself. There! There! ”
She smoothed back the lovely hair that curled
in golden tendrils where the tears had wet it.
“ Say, now, you needn’t be afraid! Nobody’ll
getcha here! I know how to bluff ’em. Even if
a policeman should come after yeh, I’d get around
him somehow, and I don’t care what you’ve done or
ain’t done, I’ll stand by yeh. I’m not one to turn
against anybody in distress. My mother always
taught me that. After you’ve et a bite and had a
cup of my nice tea with cream and sugar in it you’ll
feel better, and we’ll have a real chin-fest and hear
all about it. Now, you just shut your eyes and wait
till I make that tea.”
Jane Carson thumped up the pillow scientifically
to make as many of the feathers as posible and
shifted the little flower-head upon it. Then she
hurried to her small washstand and took a little iron
contrivance from the drawer, fastening it on the
sickly gas-jet. She filled a tiny kettle with water
from a faucet in the hall and set it to boil. From
behind a curtain in a little box nailed to the wall she
drew a loaf of bread, a paper of tea and a sugar-bowl.
A cup and saucer and other dishes appeared from
a pasteboard box under the washstand. A small


EXIT BETTY 81
shelf outside the tiny window yielded a plate of but-
ter, a pint bottle of milk, and two eggs. She drew
a chair up to the bed, put a clean handkerchief on it,
and spread forth her table. In a few minutes the
fragrance of tea and toast pervaded the room,
and water was bubbling happily for the eggs. As
cosily as if she had a chum to dine with her she sat
down on the edge of the bed and invited her guest to
supper. As she poured the tea she wondered what
her co-laborers at the factory would think if they
knew she had a real society lady visiting her. It
wasn’t every working girl that had a white satin
bride thrust upon her suddenly this way. It was
like a fairy story, having a strange bride lying on
her bed, and everything a perfect mystery about her.
She eyed the white silk ankles and dainty slippers
with satisfaction. Think of wearing underclothes
made of silk and real lace!
It seemed to Betty as if never before in all her
life had she tasted anything so delicious as that tea
and toast and soft boiled egg cooked bythis wonder-
ful girl on a gaslight and served on a chair. She
wanted to cry again over her gladness at being here.
It didn’t seem real after all the trouble she had
been through. It couldn’t last! Oh, of course it
couldn’t last!


‘CHAPTER III
MEANWHILE, in the stately mansion that Betty
had called home, a small regiment of servants has-
tened with the last tasks in preparation for the
guests that were soon expected to arrive. The great
rooms had become a dream of paradise, with silver
rain and white lilies in a mist of soft green depend-
ing from the high ceilings. In the midst of all, a
fairy bower of roses and tropical ferns created a
nook of retirement where everyone might catch a
glimpse of the bride and groom from any angle in
any room. The spacious vistas stretched away from
an equally spacious hallway, where a wide and
graceful staircase curved up to a low gallery, smoth-
ered in flowers and palms and vines; and even so
early the musicians were taking their places and tun-
ing their instruments. On the floor above, where
room after room shone in beauty, with costly fur-
nishings, and perfect harmonies, white-capped maids
flitted about, putting last touches to dressing tables
and pausing to gossip as they passed one another:
“Well, ’twi1l all be over soon,” sighed one, a
wan-faced girl with discontented eyes. “ Ain’t it
kind of a pity, all this fuss just for a few minutes! ”'
84


EXIT BETTY 35
“ Yes, an’ glad I’ll be! ” declared another, a fresh
young Irish girl with a faint, pretty brogue. “ I
don’t like the look of my Lady Betty. A pretty fuss
Candace her old nurse would be makin’ if she was
here the night! I guess the madam knew what she
was about when she give her her walkin’ ticket!
Candace never could bear them two bys, and hlim was
the worse of the two, she always said.”
“Well, a sight of good it would do for old
Candace to make a fuss! ” said the discontented one.
“And anyhow, he’s as handsome as the devil, and
she’s got money enough, so she oughtn’t complain.”
“ Money ain’t everything!” snified Aileen. “ I
wouldn’t marry a king if I wasn’t crazy about him! ”
“ Oh, you’re young!” sneered Marie with dis-
dain. “ Wait till your looks go! You don’t‘ know
what you’d take up with! ”
“ Well I’d never take up with the likes of him! ”
returned the Irish girl grandly, “ and what’s more
he knows it! ” She tossed her head meaningfully
and was about to sail away on her own business
when a stir below stairs attracted their attention.
A stout, elderly woman, dressed in a stiff new blank
silk and an apoplectic hat, came panting up the
stairs looking furtively from side to side, as if she
wished to escape before anyone recognized her:


36 EXIT BETTY
“ It’ s Candace!” exclaimed Aileen. “ As I live!
Now what d’ye wantta know about that! Poor
soul! Pood soul! Candy! Oh l—Candy! What
iver brought ye here the night? This is no place for
the loikes of you. You better beat it while
the beatin’ is good if ye know which side yer
bread’s buthered!”
But the old nurse came puffing on, her face
red and excited:
“ Is she here? Has she come yet, my poor wee
Betty? ” she besought them eagerly.
“ Miss Betty’s at the church now gettin’ mar-
ried! ” amtounced Marie uppishly, “ and you’d best
be gettin’ out of here right away, for the wedding
party’s due to arrive any minute now and madam ’ll
be very angry to have a sewant as doesn’t belong
snoopin’ round at such a time! ”
“Be still, Marie! For shame!” cried Aileen.
“ You’ve no need to talk like that to a self-respectin’
woman as has been in this house more years than
you have been weeks! Come along, Candace, and
I’ll slip you in my room and tell you all about it
when I can get away long enough. You see, Miss
Betty’s being married——-”
“But she’s not!" cried Candace wildly. “I
was at the church myself. Miss Betty sent me the


EXIT BETTY $7
word to be sure and come, and where to sit and all,
so she’d see me; and I went, and she come: up the
aisle as white as a lily and dropped right thene
before the poolpit, just like a little white lamb that
couldn’t move another step, all of a heap in her
pretty things! And they stopped the ceremony and
everybody got up, and they took heriaway, and we
waited till bime-by the minister said the bride
wasn-’t well enough to proceed with the ceremony
and would they all go home, and 1 'j11‘§£'§1ii§‘§2a"5T1E
before the folks got their wraps on and took a
side street with wings to my feet and got up here!
Haven’t they brought her home yet, the poor wee
thing? I been thinkin’ they might need me yet,
for many’s the time I’ve brought her round by
my nursin’.”
The two maids looked wildly at one another,
their glances. growing into incredulity, the eyebrows
of Marie moving toward her well-dressed hair with a
lofty disapproval.
“ Well, you’d better come with me, Candy,” said
Aileen drawing the excited old servant along the
hall to the back corridor gently. “ I guess there’s
some mistake somewheres; anyway, you better stay
in my room till you see what happens. We haven’t
heard anything yet, and they’d likely send word


38 EXIT BETTY
pretty soon if there’s to be any change in the pro-
gram. You say she fell--—? ”
But just then sounds of excitement came dis-
tantly up to them and Aileen hastened back to the
gallery to listen. It was the voice of Madam Stan-
hope angrily speaking to her youngest son:
“ You must get Bessemer on the ’phone at once
and order him home! I told you it was a great mis-
take sending him away. If he had been standing
there, where she could see him, everything would
have gone through just as we planned it——”
“ Aw! Rot! Mother. Can’t you shut up? I
know what I’m about and I’m going to call up an-
other detective. Bessemer may go to the devil for
all I care! How do you know but he has, and taken
her with him? The first thing to do is to get that
girl back! You ought to have had more sense than to
show your whole hand to my brother. You might
have known he’d take advantage———”
Herbert Hutton slammed into the telephone
booth under the stairs and Madam Stanhope was
almost immediately aware of the staring servants
who were trying not to seem to have listened.
Mrs. Stanhope stood in the midst of the beauti-
ful empty rooms and suddenly realized her position.
Her face froze into the haughty lines with which her,


I EXIT BETTY 39
l
menage was familiar, and she was as coldly beautiful
in her exquisite heliotrope gown of brocaded velvet
and chiffon with the glitter of jewels about her
smooth plump neck, and in her carefully marcelled
black hair as if she were quietly awaiting the bridal
party instead of facing defeat and mortification:
“ Aileen, you may get Miss Betty’s room. ready
to receive her. She has been taken ill and will be
brought home as soon as she is able to be moved,”
she amiounced, without turning an eyelash. “ Put
away her things, and get the bed ready! ” One could
see that she was thinking rapidly. She was a woman
who had all her life been equal to an emergency, but
never had quite such a tragic emergency been thrust
upon her to camouflage before.
“ James! ” catching the eye of the butler, “ there
will be no reception to-night, of course, and you
will see that the hired people take their things away
as soon as possible, and say that I will agree to
whatever arrangements they see fit to make, within
reason, of course. Just use your judgment, James,
and by the way, there will be telephone calls, of
course, from our friends. Say that Miss Betty is
somewhat better, and the doctor hopes to avert a
serious nervous breakdown, but that she needs entire
rest and absolute quiet for a few days. Say that


40 EXIT BETTY
and nothing more, do you understand, James?”
The butler bowed his thorough understanding
and Madam Stanhope sailed nobly up the flower-
garlanded staircase, past the huddled musicians, to
her owns apartment. Aileen, with a frightened
glance, scuttled past the door as she was closing it:
“ Aileen, ask Mr. Herbert to come to my room
at once when he has finished telephoning, and when
Mr. Bessemer arrives send him to me at once!”
Then the door closed and the woman was alone with
her defeat, and the placid enameled features melted
into an angry snarl like an animal at bay. In a
moment more Herbert stormed in.
“ It’s all your fault, mother!” he began, with
an oath. “ If you hadn’t dragged Bessemer into
this thing I’d have had her fixed. I had her just
about where I wanted her, and another day would
have broken her in. She’s scared to death of insane
asylums, and I told her long ago that it would be
dead easy to put a woman in one for life. If I had
just hinted at such a thing she’d have married me
as meek as a lamb!”
“ Now look here, Bertie,” flared his mother
excitedly, “ you’ve got to stop blaming me! Haven’t
I given in to you all your life, and now you say
it’s all my fault the least little thing that happens!


EXIT BETTY 41
It was for your sake that I stopped you; you know
it was. You couldn’t carry out any such crazy
scheme. Betty’s almost of age, and if those trustees
should find out what you had threatened, you would
be in jail for life, and goodness knows what would
become of me.”
“ Trustees! How would the trustees find it out ?’*
“ Betty might tell them.”
“ Betty might not tell them, not if she was my
wife!” He bawled out the words in a way that
boded no blissful future to the one who should
have the misfortune to become his wife. “ I think
I’d have her better trained than that. As for you,
Mother, you’re all off, as usual! What do you
think could possibly happen to you? You’re always
saying you do everything for me, but when it comes
right down to brass tacks I notice you’re pretty much
of a selfish coward on your own account.”
For a moment the baffled woman faced her angry
uncontrolled son in speechless rage, then gathered
command of the situation once more, an inscrutable
expression on her hard-lined face. Her voice took
on an almost pitiful reproach as she spoke in a
low, even tone that could hardly fail to bring the
instant attention of her spoiled sonf;
“Bertie, you don’t know what you’re talking


42 V EXIT BETTY
about!” she said, and there was a strained white
look of fear about her mouth and eyes as she spoke.
“ I’m going to tell you, in this great crisis, what I
did for you, what I risked that you might enjoy
the luxury which you have had for the last five years.
Listen! The day before Mr. Stanhope died he
wrote a letter to the trustees of Betty’s fortune giv-
ing very explicit directions about her money and
her guardianship, tying things up so that not one
cent belonging to her should pass through my hands,
which would have left us with just my income as
the will provided, and would have meant compara-
tive poverty for us all except as Betty chose to be
benevolent. I kept a strict watch on all his move-
ments those last few days, of course, and when I
found he had given Candace a letter to mail, I told
her I would look after it, and I brought it up to my
room and read it, for I suspected just some such
thing as he had done. He was very fussy about
Betty and her rights, you remember, and he had
always insisted that this was Betty’s house, her
mother’s wedding present from the grandfather,
and therefore not ours at all, except through Betty’s
bounty. I was determined that we should not be
turned out of here, and that you should not have
to go without the things you wanted while that child


EXIT BETTY 43
had everything and far more than she needed. So
I burned the letter! Now, do you see what the
mother you have been blaming has done for you? ”
But the son looked back with hard glittering eyes
and a sneer on his handsome lustful lips:
“I guess you did it about as much for your
own sake as mine, didn’t you? ” he snarled. “ And
I don’t see what that’s got to do with it, anyway.
Those trustees don’t know what they missed if they
never got the letter, and you’ve always kept in with
them, you say, and made them think you were crazy
about the girl. They pay you Betty’s allowance till
she’s of age, don’t they? They can’t lay a finger
on you. You’re a fool to waste my time talking
about a little thing like that when we ought to be
planning a way to get hold of that girl before the
trustees find out about it. If we don’t get her fixed
before she’s of age we shall be in the soup as far as
the property is concerned. Isn’t that so? Well, then,
We’ve got to get her good and married——”
“ If you only had let her marry Bessemer
quietly,” whimpered his mother, “ and not have
brought in all this deception. It will look so terrible
if it ever comes out. I shall never be able to hold
up my head in society again !”
“ There you are again! Thinking of your-


44 EXIT BETTY
self——! ” sneered the dutiful son, getting up and
stamping about her room like a wild man. “ I tell
you, Mother, that girl is mine, and I won’t have
Bessemer or anybody else putting in a finger. S he’s
mine! I told her so a long time ago, and she knows
it! She can’t get away from me, and it’s going to
go the harder with her because she’s tried. I’m
never going to forgive her making a fool out of me
before all those people! I’ll get her yet! Little fool! ”
Herbert was well on his way into one of those fits
of uncontrollable fury that had always held his
mother in obedience to his slightest whim since the
days when he used to lie on the fioor and scrwm
himself black in the face and hold his breath till she
gave in ; and the poor woman, wrought to the high-
est pitch of excitement already by the tragic events
of the evening, which were only the climax of long
Weeks of agitation, anxiety and plotting, dropped
suddenly into her boudoir chair' and began to weep.
But this new manifestation on the part of his
usually pliable mother only seemed to infuriate the
young man. He walked up to her, and seizing her
by the shoulder, shook her roughly:
“ Cut that out! ” he said hoarsely. “ This is no
time to cry. We’ve got to make some kind of a plan.
Don’t you see we’ll have the hounds of the press at


EXIT BETTY 46
our heels in a_. few hours? Don’t you see we’ve got
to make a plan and stick to it? ”
His mother looked up, regardless for once of the
devastation those few tea.rs had made of her care-
fully groomed face, a new terror growing in
her eyes:
“ I’ve told James to answer all telephone calls
and say that Betty is doing as well as could be ex-
pected, but that the doctor says she must have perfect
quiet to save her from a nervous breakdown-—-—”
she answered him coldly. “ I’m not quite a fool if
you do think so-—”
“ Well, that’s all right for to-night, but what’ll
we say tcrmorrow if we don’t find her-—-”
“ Oh! She’ll come back,” said the stepmother
confidently. “ She can’t help it. Why, where would
she go? She hasn’t a place on earth since she’s lost
confidence in that cousin of her mother's because
he didn’t come to her wedding. She hasn’t an idea
that he never got her note asking him to give her
away. Thank heaven I got hold of that before it
reached the postman! If that old granny had been
here we should have had trouble indeed. I had an
experience with him once just before I married
Betty’s father, and I never want to repeat it. But
we must look out what gets in the papers!”


46 EXIT BETTY
“ It’s rather late for that, I suspect. The blood-
hounds ’ill be around before many minutes and you
better think up what you want said. But I’m not so
sure she wouldn’t go there, and we better tell the
detectives that. What’s the old guy’s address. I’ll
call him up long distance and say she was on a motor-
ing trip and intended to stop there if she had time.
I’ll ask if she’s reached there yet.”
“ That’s a good idea, although I’m sure she was
too hurt about it to go to him. She cried all the
afternoon. It’s a wonder she didn’t look frightful!
But that’s Betty! Cry all day and come out looking
like a star without any paint either. It’s a pity some-
body that would have appreciated it couldn’t have
had her complexion.”
“ That’s you all over, Mother, talking about
frivolous things when everything’s happening at
once. You’re the limit! I say, you’d better be get-
ting down to business! I’ve thought of another
thing. How about that old nurse, Candace? Betty
used to be crazy about her? What became of her? ”
Mrs. Stanhope’s face hardened, and anxiety grew
in her eyes. I
I " “ She might have gone to her, although I don’t
believe she knows where she is. I’m sure I don’t.
I sent her away just before we began to get ready for


EXIT BETTY 47
the wedding. I didn’t dare have her here. She
knows too much and takes too much upon herself.
I wouldn’t have kept her so long, only she knew I
took the trustee’s letter, and she was very impudent
about it once or twice, so that I didn’t really dare
to let her go until just a few days ago. I thought
things would all be over here before she oould do any
harm, and Betty would be of age and have her money
in her own right, and being your wife, of course there
wouldn’t be any more trouble about it.”
“ Well, you better find out what’s become of
her ! ” said the young man with darkening face. “She
ought to be locked up somewhere! She’s liable to
make no end of trouble! You can’t tell what she’s
stirred up already! Ring for a servant and find out
if they know where she is. Ten to one that’s where
Betty is.”
Mrs. Stanhope, with startled face, stepped to the
bell and summoned Aileen:
“ Aileen, have you any idea where we could find
Miss Betty’s old nurse, Candace? ” she asked in a
soothing tone, studying the maid’s countenance. “ I
think it might be well to send for her in case Miss
Betty needs her. She was so much attached to her! ”
Aileen lifted startled eyes to her mistress’ face.
There was reserve and suspicion in her glance:


48 EXIT BETTY
“ Why, she was here a few m.inutes ago,” she
said guardedly. “ It seems Miss Betty sent her an
invitation, and when Miss Betty took sick she was
that scared she ran out of the church and come here
to find out how she was. She might not have gone
yet. I could go see.”
“ Here! Was she here? ” Mrs. Stanhope turned
her head to her son and her eyes said: “That’s
strange!” but she kept her face well under control.
“ Yes, you might go and see if you can find her,
Aileen, and if you do, tell her I would like to see
her a moment.”
Aileen went away on her errand and Mrs. Stan-
hope turned to her son:
“ Betty can’t have gone to her unless there was
some collusion. But in any case I think we had
better keep her here until we know something.”
Quick trotting steps were heard hurrying atong
the hall and a little jerky knock announced unmis-
takably the presence of Candace.
Mrs. Stanhope surveyed the little red-faced
creature coolly and sharply:
“ Candace, you have broken one of my express
commands in returning here without permission from
me, but seeing it was done in kindness I will over-
look it this time and let you stay. You may be use-


EXIT BETTY 49
ful if they bring my daughter home to-night and I
presume she will be very glad to see you. Just now
she is—umm———” she glanced furtively at her son,
and lifting her voice a trifle, as if to make her state-
ment more emphatic—“ she is at a private hospital
near the church where they took her till she should
be able to come home. It will depend on her con-
dition whether they bring her to-night or to-morrow
or in a few days. Meantime, if you like you may go
up to your old room and wait until I send for you.
I shall have news soon and will let you know. Don’t
go down to the servant’s quarters, I wish to have you
where I can call you at a moment’s notice.” _
Candace gave her ex-mistress a long, keen sus-
picious stare, pinned her with a glance as steely as
her own for an instant, in search of a possible ulte-
rior motive, and then turning on her little fat heel,
vanished like a small fast racer in the direction of
her old room.
“ Now,” said Mrs. Stanhope, turning with a
sigh of relief, “ she’s safe! I’ll set Marie to watch
her and if there’s anything going on between those
two Marie will find it out.”
But Herbert Hutton was already sitting at his
mother’ s desk with the telephone book and calling
up Long Distance.


EXI'I‘ BETTY 51
mer drove up in a hired car, and stumbled noisily
into the house, demanding to know where the wed-
ding was. He wanted to kiss the bride.
Candace, still in her stiff black silk, stood in the
shadowy hall, as near as she dared venture, and
listened, with her head thoughtfully on one side.
Betty in her note about the wedding had said she was
going to be married to Bessemer. But Bessemer
didn’t sound like a bridegroom. Had Bessemer run
away then, or what? But some things looked queer.
She remembered that Aileen had spoken as if Her-
bert was the bridegroom, but she had taken it for a.
mere slip of the tongue and thought nothing of it.
When Aileen next came that way, she asked her it
she happened to have got hold of one of the invita-
tions, and Aileen, with her finger on her lips, nodded,
and presently returned with something under
her apron:
“ I slipped it from the waste-basket,” she said,
“ and Miss Betty got a holt of it, and there was a
tremenjus fuss about something, I couldn’t make
out what; but I heard the missus say it was all a mis-
take as she gave the order over the ’phone, and she
must have misspoke herself, but anyhow she thought
she’d destroyed them all and given a rush order and
they would be all right and sent out in plenty of time.


52 EXIT BETTY

So she sticks this back in the waste-basket and orders
me to take the basket down and burn it, but I keeps
this out and hides it well. I couldn’t see nothin’ the
matter with it, can you? "
“ T here’s all the matter with it! ” declared the
angry nurse as she glared at the name of Herbert
Hutton thoughtfully, and read between the lines
more than she cared to tell.



54 EXIT BETTY
In a moment more Betty had gained control of her-
self and began to explain:
“ You see,” she said, catching her breath bravely,
“ they were determined I should marry a man I
can’t endure, and when I wou1dn’t they tried to trick
me into it anyway. I never suspected until I got
into the church and looked around and couldn’t see
Bessemer anywhere; only the other one with his
evil eyes gloating over me, and then I knew! They
thought they would get me there before all that
church full of people and I wouldn’t dare do any-
thing. But when I realized it, I just dropped right
down in the aisle I cou1dn’t stand up, I was
so frightened.”
“ But I don’t understand," said Jane. “ Were
there two men? ”
“ Oh, yes,” sighed Betty, “ there were two."
W “Well, where was the other one, the one you
wanted to marry? ”
“ I don’t know ” said Betty with a half sob
in her voice. “ That’s just what frightened me.
You see they were my stepmother’s two sons,

‘and it was my father’s dying wish that I should
marry one of them. I didn’t really want to
marry Bessemer, but I simply loathed Herbert,
the younger one, who was so determined to marry


EXIT BETTY I 55
me. I was terribly afraid of him. He had been
frightfully cruel to me when I was a child and when
he grew up he was always tormenting me; and then
when he tried to make love to me he was so repulsive
that I couldn’t bear to look at him. It really made
me sick to think of ever marrying him. Oh-—-I
c0uldn’t—no matter who asked me. So Bessemer
and I decided to get married to stop the trouble.
They were always nagging him, too, and I was kind
of sorry for him.” .
“ But why should you marry anybody you didn’t
want to, I’d like to know! ” exclaimed Jane in hor-
ror. “ This is a free country and nobody ever makes
people marry anybody they don’t like any more.
Why didn’t you just beat it? ”
“ I thought about that a good many times,” said
Betty, pressing her tired eyes with her cold little
fingers, “ but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it.
In the first place, I didn’t know where to go, nor
what to do. They never would let me learn to do
anything useful, so I couldn’t have got any work;
and anyhow I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be pos-
sible to get away where Herbert couldn’t find me if
he wanted to. He’s that way. He always gets what
he wants, no matter whom it hurts. He’s awful-
]ane—really! ”


EXIT BETTY 57
eager, troubled young face, “ and he did love me,
Jane, he loved me better than anything else in the
whole world! That was why I was willing to sacri-
fice almost anything to please him.”
“ Well, I’ll be darned! ” said ]ane Carson, sit-
ting up squarely in bed and staring at the spot of
light on the wall. “ That gets my goat! How oould
a man love you and yet Want to torment you? ”
“ Well, you see, Jane, he hadn’t been very fond
of them when they were boys ”—she spoke it with
dignity and a little gasp as if she were committing
a breach of loyalty to explain, but realized that it was
necessary—“ and he felt when he was dying that
he wanted to make reparation, so he thought if
I should marry one of them it would show them that
he had forgiven them ”
“ It—may—be—so,” drawled Jane slowly, nod-
ding her head deliberately with each word, “ but—I
don’t see it that -way! What kind of a man was this
father of yours, anyway? ”
“ Oh, a wonderful man, Jane!” Betty eagerly
hastened to explain. “ He was all the world to me,
and he used to come up to school week-ends and
take me on beautiful trips and we had the best times
together, and he would tell me about my own
dear mother--—”


58 EXIT BETTY
Betty’s hand grasped Jane’s convulsively and
her voice died out, in a sudden sob. Ja.ne’s hand
went quickly to the bright head on the pillow:
“ There! there! ” she whispered tenderly, “ don’t
take on so, I didn’t mean anything. I was just trying
to dope it out; get it through my bean what in
thunder l Say! Did he TELL you he wanted
you to marry those guys? ”
“ Oh, no, he left word—it was his dying
request.”
“ Who’d he request it to ?”
“ My stepmother.”
“ H’m! I thought so! How’d you know he
did? How’ d you know but she was lyin’ ? ”
“ No,” said Betty sorrowfully, “ she wasn’t lying,
she showed me the paper it was written on. There
couldn’t be any mistake. And his name was signed
to it, his dear hand-writing, just as he always wrote
it with the little quirl to the S that wasn’t like any-
body else. It went through me just like a knife
when I saw it, that my dear father should have asked
me to do what was so very very hard for me to think
of. It was so much harder to have it come that way.
If he had only asked me himself and we could have
talked it over, perhaps he would have helped me to
be strong enough to do it, but to have her have to


EXIT BETTY 59
tell me! She felt that herself. She tried to be kind,
I think. She said she wanted to have him wake me
up and tell me himself, but she saw his strength
was going and he was so anxious to have her write
it down quick and let him sign it that she did as
he asked
“ Well, you may depend on it he never wrote
it at all——or anyhow, never knew what he was sign-
ing. Like as not she dragged it out of him some
way while he was out of his mind or so near dying
he didn’t know what he was about. Besides, they
mightta some of ’em forged his name. It’s easy to
copy signatures. Lotsa people do it real good. If
I was you I wouldn’t think another mite about it, If
he was a man like you say he is, he couldn’ta ilone
a thing like that to his own little girl, not on his life!
It ain’t like real fathers and mothers to. I know‘, fer
I’ve got a mother that’s a peach and no mistake!
No, you may depend on it, he never knew a thing
about that, and marrying a guy like that is the last
thing on earth he’d want you to do.”
“ Oh, do you really think so? Oh, are you
sure?” cried Betty, clinging to Jane eagerly, the
tears raining down her white cheeks. “I’ve thought
so a thousand times, but I didn’t dare trust myself
to decide.”


60 EXIT BETTY

“ Yes, I’m sure! ” said Jane, gathering her in he:
arms and hugging her tight, just as she would have
done with IVa little sister who had waked up in the
night with a bad dream. “Now, look here, you
stop crying and don’t you worry another bit. Just
tell me the rest if there’s any rest, so I’ll know what
to bank on. Who is the other guy, the one you didn’t
mind marryin’? What became of‘ him?”
“ Why, that’s the queer part,” said Betty,
troubled again. “ He didn’t seem to be anywhere,
and when they carried me into the room back of the
church and fanned me and got water to bathe my
face, a doctor came and gave me some medicine and
sent them all out, and I asked him to send Bessemer
to me. I wanted to find out why he hadn’t been
standing up there by the minister the way I expected.
I heard the doctor go out and ask for Bessemer
and I heard my stepmother’s voice say, ‘ Why Bes-
semer isn’t here! He’s gone down to the shore!’
and then somebody said, ‘ Hush,’ and they shut the
door, and I was so frightened that I got up and
tried all the doors till I found one that led down
some stairs, and I locked it behind me and ran and
found you!”
“ You poor little kid! ” cried Jane, cuddling her
again. “I sure am glad I was on the job! But


EXIT BETTY 61
now, tell me, what’s your idea? Will they make a
big noise and come huntin’ you? "
“ Oh, yes! ” said Betty wearily. “ I suppose they
will. I know they will, in fact. Herbert won’t be
balked in anything he wants-.-—Bessemer won’t
count. He never counts. I’m sort of sorry for him,
though I don’t like him much. You see they had
been making an awful fuss with him, too, about
some actress down at the shore that he was sending
flowers to, and I knew he didn’t have a very easy
time. So when he came in one day and asked me
why I didn’t marry him and settle the whole thing
that way, I was horrified at first, but I finally
thought perhaps that would be the best thing to do.
He said he wouldn’t bother me any, if I .W0u1dn’t
bother him; and we thought perhaps the others would
let us alone then. But I might have known Herbert
wouldn’t give in! Bessemer is easily led-—Herbe:rt
could have hired him to go away to-night--or they
may have made him ask me to marry him. He’s
like that,” sadly. “You can’t depend on him. I
don’t know. You see, it was kind of queer about
the invitations. They came with Herbert’s name in
them first, and my stepmother tried to keep me
from seeing them. She said they were late and she
had them all sent ofi; but I found one, and when


62 EXI'I‘ BETTY
I went to my stepmother with it she said it was a
mistake. She hadn’t meant me to be annoyed by
seeing it; and she didn’t know how it happened; she
must have misspoken herself—but it had been cor-
rected and they would rush it through and send them
right from the store this time so there wouldn’t
be any delay. I tried to think it was all right, but
it troubled me, for I saw that Herbert hadn’t given
up at all—though he pretended to go away, and I
hoped I wouldn’t have any more trouble—but I
might have known! Herbert never gave up any-
thing in his life, not even when father was living.
He always managed to get his way, somehow ”
“ Did he love you so much? ” Jane asked
awesomely.
Betty shuddered:
“ Oh, I don’t know whether it was love or hate!
It was all the same. I hate to think about him—he
is-dunbearable, Jane! Why, Jane, once he told me
if he ever got me in his power he’d break my will
or kill me in the attempt ! ”
" Well, now, there, Kidl Don’t you think an-
other bit about him, the old brute! You just lie
down and sleep as easy as if you was miles away.
They won’t any of ’em ever find you here with me,
and I’ve pulled the washstand in front of the door,


EXIT BETTY 63
so you needn’t be dreaming of anybody coming in
and finding you. Now go to sleep, and to-morrow
I’ll sneak you away to a place where they can’t ever
find you. Good night, Kid! ” and Jane leaned down
and kissed the soft hair on the pillow beside her.
Betty flung her arms about her new-found friend
and kissed her tenderly:
“ Oh, you’ve been so good to me! What should
I ever have done if I hadn’t found you. You were
like an angel. I think surely God must havesent
you to help me.”
“ I shouldn’t wonder if he did! ” said Jane
thoughtfully. “ An angel in a mackintosh!
Some angel! ”
Jane Carson with her eyes wide open lay staring
into the darkness and thinking it all over. She did
not waste much time marvelling over the wonder that
it had all happened to her. That would do for
afterward when there was nothing else to be done
about it. Now there must be some plans made and
she was the one to make them. It was quite plain
that the wonderful and beautiful Elizabeth Stanhope,
the plans for whose wedding had been blazoned in
the papers for days beforehand, was not at present
capable of making or carrying out anything effective.
]ane was. She knew it. She was a born leader and


64 EXIT BETTY
-u
promoter. She liked nothing better than to work
out a difficult situation. But this was the most diffi-
cult proposition that she had ever come up against.
\Vhen her father died and her mother was left with
the little house and the three younger children to
support in a small country village, and only plain
sewing and now and then a boarder to eke out a liv-
ing for them all, she had sought and found, through
a summer visitor who had taught her Sunday school
class for a few weeks, a good position in this big
Eastern city. She had made good and been promoted
until her wages not only kept herself with strict
economy, but justified her in looking forward to the
time when she might send for her next younger sis-
ter. Her deft fingers kept her meagre wardrobe in
neatness—and a tolerable deference to fashion, so
that she had been able to annex the “ gentleman
friend ” and take a little outing with him now and
then at a moving picture theatre or a Sunday evening
service. She had met and vanquished the devil on
more than one battlefield in the course of her experi-
enoe with difierent department heads; and she was
wise beyond her years in the ways of the world.
But this situation was different. Here was a girl
who had been brought up “ by hand,” as she would
have said with a sneer a few hours before, and she


EXIT BETTY 65
would have despised her for it. She raised up on
one elbow and leaned over once more to watch the
delicate profile of this gentle maiden, in the dim fitful
light of the city night that came through the one little
window. There had been something appealing in the
beauty and frankness of the girl bride, something
appalling in the situation she had found herself in.
Jane Carson didn’t know whether she was doing
right or not to help this stray bride It made her
catch her breath to think how she might be bringing
all the power of the law and of money upon her reck-
less young head, but she meant to do it, just the same.
Elizabeth Stanhope! What a beautiful name!
It fitted right in with all the romance Jane had ever
dreamed. If she only could write scenarios, what a
thriller this would make!
Then she lay down and fell to planning.


CHAPTER V
THE morning dawned, and still no word from
the missing bride. But the brief guarded sentences
which Herbert Hutton had telephoned to the news-
papers had been somehow sidetracked, and in their
place a ghastly story had leaked out which some
poor, hard-pressed reporter had gleaned from the
gossip in the church and hurried off to put into type
before there was time for it to be denied Hot foot
the story had rim, and great headlines proclaimed
the escape of Betty even while the family were care-
fully paving the way for the report of a protracted
illness and absence, if need be, till they could find
trace of her. The sun rose brightly and made weird
gleaming of the silver wire on which the dying roses
hung. The air was heavy with their breath, and the
rooms in the early garish light looked out of place as
if some fairy wand had failed to break the incanta-
tion at the right hour and left a piece of Magicland
behind. The parlor maid went about uncertainly,
scarcely knowing what to do and what to leave
undone, and the milk cars, and newsboys, and early
laborers began to make a clatter of every day on the
06


EXIT BETTY 6'7
streets. The morning paper. flung across the steps
with Betty’s picture, where Betty’s reluctant feet
had gone a few hours before, seemed to mock at
life, and upstairs the man that Betty thought she
went out to marry, lay in a heavy stupor of sleep.
Happy Betty, to be resting beneath the coarse sheet
of the kindly working girl, sleeping the sleep of ex-
haustion and youth in safety, two miles from the
rose-bowered rooms!
Long before day had really started in the great
city Jane Carson was up and at work. She dressed
swiftly and silently, then went to her little trunk,
and from it selected a simple wardrobe of coarse
clean garments. One needed mending and two but-
tons were off. She sat by the dingy window and
strained her eyes in the dawn to make the necessary
repairs. She hesitated long over the pasteboard
suit-box that she drew from under the bed. It
contained a new dark blue serge dress for which she
had saved a long time and in which she had intended
to appear at church next Sabbath. She was divided
between her desire to robe the exquisite little guest
in its pristine folds and her longing to wear it herself.
There was a sense of justice also which entered into
the matter. If that elegant wedding dress was to be
hers, and all those wonderful silk underclothes,


68 EXIT BETTY
which very likely she would never allow herself
to wear, for they would be out of place on a poor
working girl, it was not fair to repay their donor in
old clothes. She decided to give the runaway bride
her new blue serge. \Vith just a regretful bit of a
sigh she laid it out on the foot of the bed, and
carefully spread out the tissue papers and folded the
white satin garments away out of sight, finishing the
bundle with a thick wrapping of old newspapers from
a pile behind the door and tying it securely. She
added a few pins to make the matter more sure,
and got out a stub of a pencil and labeled it in large
letters, “My summer dresses,” then shoved it far
back under the bed. If any seeking detective came
he would not be likely to bother with that, and he
might search her trunk in vain for white satin
slippers and wedding veils.
Breakfast was next, and she put on her cloak and
hurried out for supplies for the larder had been
heavily depleted the night before to provide for her
guest. \Vith a tender glance toward the sleeper she
slipped the key from the lock and placed it in the
outside of the door, silently locking her guest within.
Now there would be no danger of any one spiriting
her away while she was gone, and no danger that the
girl might wake up and depart in her absence.


EXIT BETTY 69
She stopped a newsboy on his way to the subway
and bought a paper, thrilling at the thought that
there might be something in it about the girl who lay
asleep in her little hall bedroom.
While she waited for her bundles she stole a
glance at her paper, and there on the front page in big
letters ran the heading: ,
STANHOPE WEDDING
HELD UP AT ALTAR BY
UNCONSCIOUS BRIDE
Relatives S eek Runaway Girl Who is
Thought to be Insane
She caught her breath and rolled the paper in a
little wad, stuffing it carelessly into her pocket. She
could not read any more of that in public. She
hastened back to her room.
Betty was still sleeping. Jane stood watching
her for a full minute with awe in her face. She
could not but recognize the difference between her-
self and this fine sweet product of civilization and
wealth. With the gold curls tossed back like a
ripple of sunshine, and a pathetic little droop at the
corners of her sweet mouth, nothing lovelier could
be. Jane hurried to the window and turned her
back on the bed while she perused the paper, her


70 EXIT BETTY
rage rising at the theories put forth. It was even
hinted that her mother had been insane. Jane turned
again and looked hard at the young sleeper, and the
idea crossed her mind that even she might be de-
ceived. Still, she Was willing to trust her judgment
that this girl was entirely sane, and anyhow she
meant to help her! She stuffed the paper down
behind the trunk and began to get breakfast. When
it was almost ready she gently awoke the sleeper.
Betty started at the light touch on her shoulder
and looked wildly around at the strange room and
stranger face of the other girl. In the dim light of
the evening she had scarcely got to know _]ane’s face.
But in a moment all the happenings of the day be-
fore came back, and she sat up excitedly.
“ I ought to have got away before it was light,”
she said gripping her hands together. “ I wonder
where I could go, Jane?” It was pleasant to call
this girl by her first name. Betty felt that she was a
tower of strength, and so kind.
“ I have this ring,” she said, slipping off an ex-
quisite diamond and holding it out. “ Do you sup-
pose there would be any way I could get money
enough to travel somewhere with this? If I can’t
I’1l have to walk, and I can’t get far in a. day
that way.”


72 EXIT BETTY
have them, but I guess you ain’t got much
choice in your fix. I got a paper this morning.
They’re huntin’ fer you hot foot. They say you
was temperary insane, an’ ’f I was you I’d keep out
0’ their way a while. You lay low an’ I’ll keep my eye
out and let you know, I’ve got a little money under
the mattrass I can let you have till that ring gets sold.
You can leave it with me an’ I’ll do the best I can
if you think you can trust me. Of course I’m a
stranger, but then, land! So are you! We just
gotta trust each other. And I’m sending you to my
mother if you’ll go! ”
“ Oh! ” said Betty, springing up and hugging her
impulsively, “you’re so good! To think I should
find somebody just like that right in the street when
I needed you so. I almost think God did it! ”
“Well, mebbe!” said Jane, in her embarrass-
ment turning to hang up a skirt that had fallen from
its hook. “ Tha.t’s what they say sometimes in
Chrishun Deavor meetin’. Ever go to Chrishun
Deavor? Better go when you get out home. They
have awful good socials an’ ice cream, and you’ll
meet some real nice folks. We’ve got a peach of a
minister, and his wife is perfec’ly dandy. I tell you
I missed ’em when I came to the city! They was
always doing something nice fer the young folks.”


EXIT BETTY 73
“ How interesting! ” said Betty, wondering if she
might really be going to live like other girls. Then
the shadow of her danger fell over her once more,
and her cheek paled.
“ If I can only get there safely,” she shuddered.
“ Oh, Jane! You can’t understand what it would
be to have to go back! ”
“ Well, you’re not going back. You’re going to
Tinsdale, and nobody’s going to find you ever, unless
you want ’em to! See? Now, listen! We haven’t
any time to waste. You oughtta get off on the ten
o’clock train. I put out some clothes there for yeh.
They ain’t like yours, but it won’t do fer you to go
dressed like a millionairess. Folks out to Tinsdale
would suspect yeh right off the bat. You gotta go
plain like me, and it’s this way: You’re a friend I
picked up in the city whose mother is dead and you
need country air a while, see? So I sent you home to
stay with Ma till you got strong again. I’m wirin’
Ma. She’ll understand. She always does. I kinda
run Ma anyhow. She thinks the sun rises an’ sets
in me, so she’ll do just what I say.”
“ I’m afraid I oughtn’t to intrude,” said Betty
soberly, taking up the coarse, elaborately trimmed
lingerie with a curious look, and trying not to seem
to notice that it was difierent from any she had
ever wor n before.


74 EXIT BETTY
“ Say! Looka here! ” said Jane Carson, facing
round from her coffee cup on the washstand. “ I’m
sorry to criticize, but if you could just talk a little
slang or something. Folks ’ll never think you belong
to me. ‘ Intrude! ’ Now, that sounds stuck up! You
oughtta say ‘ be in the way,’ or something natural
like that. See? ”
“ I’m afraid I don’t,” said Betty dubiously, “ but
I’ll try.”
“ You’re all right, Kid,” said Jane with compunc-
tion in her voice. “ Just let yourself down a little
like I do, and remember you don’t wear silk onder-
clothes now. I’m afraid those‘ stockings won’t feel
very good after yours, but you gotta be careful. An’
’f I was you I’d cut my hair off, I really would. It’s
an awful pity, it’s so pretty, but it’ll grow again.
How old are you? ”
“ Almost twenty-one,” said Betty thoughtfully.
“ Just three months more and I’ll be twenty-one.”
“ H’m! Of age! ” said Jane with a sharp signifi-
cant look at her, as if a new thought had occurredx
“Well, you don’t look it! You could pass for fif-j
teen, especially if you had your hair bobbed. I can
do it for you if you say so.”
“ All right,” said Betty promptly without a
qualm. “ I always wanted it short. It’s an awful
nuisance to comb.”


I EXIT BETTY 75
“ That’s the talk! ” said Jane. “ Say ‘ awful ’ a
lot, and you’ll kinda get into the hang of it. It
sounds more-—well, natural, you know; not like so-
ciety talk. Here, sit down and I’ll do it quick before
you get cold feet. I sure do hate to drop them curls,
but I guess it’s best.”
The scissors snipped, snipped, and the lovely
strands of bright hair fell on the paper Jane had
spread for them. Betty sat cropped like a sweet
young boy. Jane stood back and surveyed the effect
through her lashes approvingly. She knew the exact
angle at which the hair should splash out on the cheek
to be stylish. She had often contemplated cutting
her own, only that her mother had begged her not to,
and she realized that her hair was straight as a die
and would never submit to being tortured into that
alluring wave over the ear and out toward the cheek-
bone. But this sweet young thing was a darling!
She felt that the daring deed had been a success.
“ I got a bottle of stuff to make your hair dark,”
she remarked. “ I guess we better put it on. That
hair of yours is kinda conspicuous, you know, even
when its cut off. It won’t do you any harm. It
washes ofi soon.” And she dashed something on the
yellow hair. Betty sat with closed eyes and sub-
mitted. Then her mentor burnt a cork and put a
touch to the eyebrows that made a difierent Betty


CHAPTER VI
WARREN REYBURN laid down his pen and shoved
back his office chair impatiently, stretching out his
long muscular limbs nervously and rubbing his
hands over his eyes as if to clear them from annoy-
ing visions.
James Ryan, his office boy and stenographer,
watched him furtively from one corner of his eye,
while his fingers whirled the typewriter on through‘
the letter he was typing. James wanted to take
his girl to the movies that evening and he hadn’t
had a chance to see her the day before. He was
wondering if Mr. Reyburn would go out in time for
him to call her up at her noon hour. He was a very
temperamental stenographer and understood the
moods and tenses of his most temperamental em-
ployer fully. It was all in knowing how to manage
him. James was most deferential, and knew when
to keep still and not ask questions. This was one
of the mornings when he went to the dictionary
himself when he wasn’t sure of a word rather, than
break the ominious silence. Not that Mr. Reyburn
was a hard master, quite the contrary, but this was
7'7


78 EXIT BETTY
_Iames’s first place straight from his brief course at
business school, and he was making a big bluff of
being an old experienced hand.
There was not much business to be done. This
was Warren Reybum’s “ first place ” also in the
world of business since finishing his law course, and
he was making a big bluff at being very busy, to cover
up a sore heart and an anxious mind. It was being
borne in upon him gradually that he was not a shout-
ing success in business so far. The rosy dreams that
had floated near all through his days of hard study
had one by one left him, until his path was now lead-
ing through a murky gray way with little hope ahead.
Nothing but sheer grit kept him at it, and he began
to wonder how long he could stick it out if nothing
turned up.
True, he might have accepted an offer that even
now lay open on his desk; a tempting offer, too, from
a big corporation who recognized the influence of his
old family upon their particular line of business;
but it was a line that his father and his grandfather
had scorned to touch, and he had grown up with
an honest contempt for it. He just could not bring
himself to wrest the living from the poor and needy,
and plunder the unsuspecting, and he knew that was
what it would be if he closed with this ofier. Not


EXIT BETTY 79
yet had he been reduced to such depths, he told him-
self, shutting his fine lips in a firm curve. “ No, not
if he starved! ”
That was the legitimate worry that rufiied his
handsome brow as he sat before his desk frowning
,at that letter. He meant to begin dictation on its
answer in another five minutes or so, but meantime
he was forcing himself to go over every point and
make it strong and clear to himself, so that he should
say, “ No! ” strongly and clearly to the corporation.
It might do harm to ‘make his reason for declining
so plain, but he owed it to his self-respect to give
it nevertheless, and he meant to do so. After all,
he had no business so far to harm, so what did it
matter? If nothing turned up pretty soon to give
him a start he would have to change his whole plan
of life and take up something else where one did not
have to wait for a reputation before he could have
a chance to show what was in him.
But underneath the legitimate reason for his
annoyance this morning there ran a most foolish little
fretting, a haunting discomfort.
He had taken his cousin to a wedding the night
before because her husband had been called away
on business, and she had no one to escort her. They
had been late and the church was crowded. He had


80 EXIT BETTY
had to stand, and as he idly looked over the audience
he suddenly looked full into the great sad eyes of the
sweetest little bride he had ever seen. He had not
been a young man to spend his time over pretty faces,
although there were one or two nice girls in whom
he was mildly interested. He had even gone so far
as to wonder now and then which of them he would
be willing to see sitting at his table day after day
the rest of his life, and he had not yet come to a satis-
factory conclusion. His cousin often rallied him
about getting married, but he always told her it
would be time enough to think about that when he
had an income to offer her.
But when he saw that flower-face, his attention
was held at once. Somehow he felt as if he had
not known there was a face like that in all the world,
so like a child’s, with frank yet modest droop to the
head, and the simplicity of an angel, yet the sadness
of a sacrificial offering. Unbidden, a grmt desire
sprang up to lift for her whatever burden she was
bearing, and bring light into those sad eyes. Of
course it was a passing sensation, but his eyes had
traveled involuntarily to the front of the church to
inspect the handsome forbidding face of the bride-
groom, and with instant dissatisfaction he looked
back to the girl once more and watched her come up


EXIT BETTY 81
to the altar, speculating as those who love to study
humanity are wont to do when they find an interest-
ing subject. How had those two types ever happened
to come together? The man’s part in it was plain.
He was the kind who go about seeking whom they
may devour, thought Warren Reyburn. But the
woman! V_ How could a wise-eyed child like that
have been deceived by a ha.ndsome face? Well, it
was all speculation of course, and he had nothing
to do with any of them. They were strangers to him
and probably always would be. But he had no con-
ception at that time what a small world he lived in,
nor how near the big experiences of life lie all
about us.
He watched the lovely bride as all the audience
watched her until he saw her fall, and then he
started forward without in the least realizing what
he was doing. He found himself half way up the
side aisle to the altar before he came to himself and
forced his feet back to where his cousin was sitting.
Of course he had no right up there, and what could
he do when there were so many of her friends and
relatives about her?
His position near the side door through which
they carried her made it quite possible for him to
look down into her still face as they took her to the
0


82 EXIT BETTY
vestry room, and he found a great satisfaction in
seeing that she was even more beautiful at close
hand than at a dietance. He wondered afterward
why his mind had laid so much stress upon the fact
that her skin was lovely like a baby’s without any
sign of cosmetics. He told himself that it was
merely his delight to learn that there was such a
type, and that it ran true.
He was therefore not a little disappointed that
the minister, after the congregation had waited an
unconscionable time for the return of the bride, came
out and announced that owing to her continued col-
lapse the ceremony would have to be postponed. _The
clatter of polite wonder and gossip annoyed him be-
yond measure, and he was actually cross with his
cousin on the way home when she ranted on about
the way girls nowadays were brought up, coddled,
so that a breath would blow them away. Somehow
wshe had not looked like that kind of a girl.
But when the morning papers came out with sen-
sational headlines proclaiming that the bride had
run away, and suggesting all sorts of unpleasant
things about her, he felt a secret exultation that she
had been brave enough to do so. It was as if he
had found that her spirit was as wise and beautiful
as her face had been. His interest in the matter


84 EXIT BETTY
“ That’s my girl, say how about that wedding
veil? Been thinking any more about it? ”
There was silence for a moment, then a conscious
giggle, the full significance of which James Ryan
was not in a position to figure’ out.
“ Say, Jimmie, quit your kiddin’l You mustn’t
say things like that over the ’phone.”
“ Why not? ”
“ ’Cause. Folks might listen.”
“ I should worry! Well, since you say so. How
about seein’ a show together to-night? ”
“ Fine an’ dandy, Jimmie! I’ll be ready at the
usual time. I gotta go now, the boss is comin’. So
long, Jimmie! ”
“ So long, darling! ”
But the receiver at the other end hung up with
a click, while Jane with a smile on her lips thought
of the pasteboard box under her bed and wondered
what Jimmie would say if he could know. For Jane
had fully made up her mind that Jimmie was not to
know. Not at present, anyhow. Some time she might
tell him if things turned out all right, but she knew
just what lordly masculine advice and cniticism
would lie upon James Ryan’s lips if she attempted
to tell him about her strange and wonderful guest
of the night before. Maybe she was a fool to have


EXIT BE'I'I‘Y ‘ 85
trusted a stranger that way. Maybe the girl would
turn out to be insane or wrong somehow, and trouble
come, but she didn’t believe it; and anyhow, she
was going to wait, until she saw what happened next
before she got Jimmie mixed up iii it. Besides, the
secret wasn’t hers to tell. She had promised Betty,
and she always kept her promises. That was one-
reason why she was so slow in promising to think
about a. wedding veil in response to James Ryan’s oft
repeated question.
That evening on the way to the movies Jane
instituted an investigation.
“ Jimmie, what kind of a man is your boss? ”
“ White man! ” said Jimmie promptly.
“ Aw! Cut it out, James Ryan! I don’t mean
how’d s’e look, or what color is he; I mean what
kind of a man is he? ”
“ Well, that’s the answer. White man! What’s
the matter of that? I said it and I meant it. He’s
white if there ever was one!”
“ Oh, that! ” said Miss Carson in scorn. “ Of
course I know he’s a peach. If he wasn’t you
wouldn’t be workin’ for him. What I mean, is he
a snob? ”
H I!
No chance!
“ Well, I saw him -with ’em last night. I was


86 EXIT BETTY
passin’ that big church up Spruce Street and I saw
him standin’ with his arms folded so——” she paused
on the sidewalk and indicated his pose. “ It was a
swell weddin’ and. the place was full up. He had a
big white front an’ a clawhammer coat. I know
it was him ’cause I took a good look at him that
time you pointed him out at church that evenin’. M I
wondered was he in with them swells? ”
Her tone expressed scorn and not a little anxiety,
as if she had asked whether he frequented places
of low reputation.
“ Oh, if you mean, could he be, why that’s a dif-
frunt thing! ” said James the wise. “ Sure, he could
be if he wanted, I guess. He’s got a good family.
His uncle’s some high muckymuck, and you often see
his aunts’ and cousins’ names in the paper giving teas
and receptions and going places. But he don’t seem
to go much. I often hear folks'ask him why he
wasn’t some place last night, or ’phone to know if he
won’t come, and he always says he can’t spare the
time, or he can’t afford it, or something like that.”
“ Ain’t he rich, Jimmie? ”
“ Well, no, not exactly. He may have some
money put away, or left him by some one. If he
don’t'have I can’t fer the life of me see how he lives.
But he certainly don’t get it in fees. IVI often won-


EXIT BETTY 87
der where my salary comes from, but it always does,
regular as the clock.”
“ Jimmie, doesn’t he have any business at all? ”
“ Oh, yes he has business, but it a.in’t the paying
kind. Fer instance, there was a man in to-day
trying to get his house back that another man took
away from him, and my boss took the case! He
took it right 0 1?‘ the bat without waiting to see
whether the man could pay him anything or not!
He can’t! He’s only a poor laboring man, and a rich
man stole his house. Just out an’ out stole it, you
know It’s how he got rich. Like as not we’ll lose
it, too, those rich men have so many ways of crawling
out of a thing and making it look nice to the world.
Oh, he’ll get a fee, of course—twenty-five dollars,
perhaps—but what’s twenty-five dollars, and like as
not never get even the whole of that, or have to wait
for it? Why, it wouldn’t keep me in his office long!
Then there was a girl trying to get hold of the money
her own father left her, and her uncle frittered away
and pertends it cost him all that, and he’s been sup-
porting her! Well, we took that, too, and we won’t
get much out of that even if we do win. Then there
come along one of these here rich guys with a
pocket full of money and a nice slick tongue wanting
to be protected from the law in some devilment, and


88 EXIT BETTY
him we turned down flat! That’s how it goes in our
office. I can’t just figger out how it’s coming out!
But he’s a good guy, a white man if there ever
was one! ”
“ I should say! ” responded Jane with shining
eyes. “ Say, Jimmie, what’s the matter of us throwin’
a little business in his way—real, payin’ business,
I mean? ”
“ Fat chance! ” said Jimmie dryly.
“ You never can tell! ” answered Jane dreamily.
“ I’m goin’ to think about it. Our fact’ry has law-
yers sometimes. I might speak to the boss.”
“ Do!” said Jimmie sarcastically! “ And have
yer labor for yer pains! We’ll prob’ly turn them
down. F act’ries are always doing things they hadn’t
ought to.”
But Jane was silent and thoughtful, and they
were presently lost in the charmsof Mary Pickford.
The evening papers came out with pictures of
Elizabeth Stanhope and her bridegroom that was tIVo
have been. Jane cut away the bridegroom and
pasted the bride’s picture in the flyleaf of her Bible,
then hid it away in the bottom of her trunk.



90 EXIT BETTY
and the woman in black who wept behind her veil and
would not smile no matter how hard the man tried
to make her. It was a revelation to her that any
man would try as hard as that to make a woman
smile. She watched the Italian family with five
children and nine bundles, and counted the colors on
a smart young woman who got in at a way station.
Every minute of the day was interesting. Every
mile of dreary November landscape that whirlec"J
by gave her more freedom.
She opened the little shabby handbag that Jane
had given her and got out the bit of mirror one
inch by an an inch and a half backed with paste-
board on which lingered particles of the original
green taffeta lining and studied her own strange
face, trying to get used to her new self and her new
name. Jane had written it, Lizzie Hope, on the back
of the envelope containing the address of Mrs. Car-
son. It seemed somehow an identification card. She
studied it curiously and wondered if Lizzie Hope
was going to be any happier than Betty Stanhope had
been. And then she fell to thinking over the strange
experiences of the last twenty-four hours and won-
dering whether she had done right or not, and
whether her father would have been disappointed
in her. “ ashamed of her.” as her stepmother had


EXIT BETTY 91
said. Somehow Jane had made her feel that he
would not, and she was more light-hearted than she
had been for many a day.
Late in the afternoon she began to wonder what
Tinsdale would be like. In the shabby handbag
was her ticket to Tinsdale and eight dollars and a
half in change. It made her feel richer than she
had ever felt in her life, although she had never
been stinted as to pocket money. But this was her
very own, for her needs, and nobody but herself to
say how she should spend either it or her time.
Little towns came in sight and passed, each one
with one or two churches, a schoolhouse, a lot of
tiny houses. Would Tinsdale look this way? How
safe these places seemed, yet lonely, too! Still, no
one would ever think of looking for her in a lonely
little village.
They passed a big brick institution, and she made
out the words, “ State Asylum,” and shuddered in-
wardly as she thought of what Jane had told her
about the morning paper. Suppose they should hunt
her up and put her in an insane asylum, just to show
the world that it had not been their fault that she
had run away from her wedding! The thought was
appalling. She dropped her head on her hand with
her face toward the window and tried to pretend


92 EXIT BETTY
she was asleep and hide the tears that would come,
but presently a boy came in at the station with a big
basket and she bought a ham sandwich and an apple.
It tasted good. She had not expected that it would.
She decided that she must have been pretty hungry
and then fell to counting her money, aghast that the
meager supper had made such a hole in her capital.
She must be very careful. This might be all the
money she would have for a very long time, and
there was no telling what kind of an impossible place
she was going to. She might have to get away as
eagerly as she had come. Jane was all right, but
that was not saying that her mother and sisters
would be.
It was growing dark, and the lights were lit in the
car. All the little Italian babies had been given drinks
of water, and strange things to eat, and tumbled to
sleep across laps and on seats, anywhere they would
stick. They looked so funny and dirty and pitiful
with their faces all streaked with soot and molasses
candy that somebody had given them. The mother
looked tired and greasy and the father was fat and
dark, with unpleasant black eyes that seemed to roll
a great deal. Yet he was kind to the babies and his
wife seemed to like him. She wondered what kind
of a home they had, and what relation the young


EXIT BETTY 93
fellow with the shiny dark curls bore to them. He
seemed to take as much care of the babieswasm did
their father and mother.
The lights were flickering out in the villages now
and gave a friendly inhabited look to the houses.
Sometimes when the train paused at stations Betty
could see people moving back and forth at what
seemed to be kitchen tables and little children bringing
dishes out, all working together. It looked pleasant
and she wondered if it would be like that where
she was going. A big lump of loneliness was grow-
ing in her throat. It was one thing to run away from
something that you hated, but it was another to jump
into a new life where one neither knew nor was
known. Betty began to shrink inexpressibly from
it all. Not that she wanted to go back! Oh, no;
far from it! But once when they passed a little
white cemetery with tall dark fir trees waving guard-
ingly above the white stones she looked out almost
wistfully. If she were lying in one of those beside
her father and mother how safe and rested she
would be. She wouldn’t have to worry any more.
What was it like where father and mother had gone?
Was it a real place? Or was that just the end when
one died? Well, if she were sure it was all she
would not care. She would be willing to just go


94 EXIT BETTY
out and not be. But somehow that didn’t seem to
be the commonly accepted belief. There was always
a beyond in most people’s minds, and a fear of just
what Betty didn’t know. She was a good deal of
a heathen, though she did not know that either.
Then, just as she was floundering into a lot of
theological mysteries of her own discovery the nasal
voice of the conductor called out: “ Tinsdale! Tins-
dale !” and she hurried to her feet in something of a
panic, conscious of her short hair and queer clothes.
I ‘Down on the platform she stood a minute trying
to get used to her feet, they felt so numb and empty
from long sitting. Her head swam just a little, too,
and the lights on the station and in the houses near
by seemed to dance around her weirdly. She had a
feeling that she would rather wait until the train was
gone before she began to search for her new home,
and then when the wheels ground and began to turn
and the conductor shouted “ All aboard! ” and swung
himself up the step as she had seen him do a hundred
times that afternoon, a queer sinking feeling of lone-
liness possessed her, and she almost wanted to catch
the rail and swing back on again as the next pair
of car steps flung by her.
Then a voice that sounded a little like Jane’s
said pleasantly in her ear: “Is this Lizzie Hope? "


EXIT BETTY 95
and Betty turned with a thrill of actual fright to
face Nellie Carson and her little sister Emily.
"Bobbie’ll be here in a minute to carry your
suitcase,” said Nellie efficiently; “ he just went over
to see if he could borrow Jake Peter’s wheelbarrow
in case you had a trunk. You didn’t bring your
trunk? O, but you’re going to stay, aren’t you?
I’m goin’ up to the city to take a p’sition, and
ll/Iother’d be awful lonesome. Sometime of course
we’ll send fer them to come, but nowh the children’s
little an’ the country’s better fer them. They gotta
go to school awhile. You’ll stay, won’t you?”
“ How do you know you’ll want me? ” laughed
Betty, at her ease in this unexpected air of welcome.
“ Why, of course we’d want you. Jane sent you.
Jane wouldn’t of sent you if you hadn’t been a good
scout. Jane knows. Besides, I’ve got two eyes,
haven’t I? I guess I can tell right off.”
Emily’s shy little hand stole into Betty’s and the
little girl looked up:
“ I’m awful glad you come! I think you’re
awful pretty!”
“ Thank you?” said Betty, warmly squeezing
the little confiding hand. It was the first time in her
life that a little child had come close to her in this
confiding way. Her life had not been among children.


EXIT BETTY 97
we were awful scared for fear you wouldn’t come
till morning, an’ have to stay on the train all night.
Ma says it isn’t nice for a girl to have to travel
alone at night. Ma always makes Jane and me
go daytimes.” _
I
“ It was just lovely of you,” said Betty, wonder-
ing if she was talking “ natural ” enough to
please Jane.
“ Did you bob you hair ’cause you had a fever? ”
asked Nellie enviously.
“ No,” said Betty, “ that is, I haven’t been very
well, and I thought it might be good for me,” she
finished, wondering how many questions like that it
was going to be hard for her to answer without tell-
ing a lie. A lie was something that her father had
made her feel would hurt him more deeply than
anything else she could do.
“ I just love it,” said Nellie enthusiastically. “ I
wanted to cut mine, an’ so did Jane, but Ma wouldn’t
let us. She says God gave us our hair, an’ we
oughtta take care of it.”
“ That’s true, too,” said Betty. “ I never thought
about that. But I guess mine will grow again after a
while. I think it will be less trouble this way. But
it’s very dirty with traveling. I think I’ll have to
wash it before I put it on a pillow.”
7


98 EXIT BETTY
That had troubled Betty greatly. She- didn’t
know how to get rid of that hair dye before Jane’s
family got used to having it dark.
“ Sure, you can wash it, if you ain’t ’fraid of
takin’ oold. There’s lots of hot water. Ma thought
you’d maybe want to take a bath. We’ve got a big
tin bath-tub out in the back shed. Ma bought it off
the Joneses when they got their porcelain one put
into their house. We don’t have no runnin’ water
but we have an awful good well. Here’s our house.
I guess Bob’s got there first. See, Ma’s out on the
steps waitin’ fer us.”
The house was a square wooden affair, long
wanting paint, and trimmed with little scrollwork
around the diminutive front porch. The oolor was
indescribable, blending well IVinto the surroundings
either day or night. It had a cheerful, decent look,
but very tiny. There was a small yard about it
with a picket fence, and a leafless lilac bush. A
cheerful barberry bush flanked the gate on either
side. The front door was open into a tiny hall and
beyond the light streamed forth from a glass la1np
set on a pleasant dining-room table covered with a
red cloth. Betty stepped inside the gate and found
herself enveloped in two motherly arms, and then
led into the light and warmth of the family
dining-room.


CHAPTER VIII
THERE was a kettle of stew on the stove in the
kitchen, kept hot from supper, for Betty, with fresh
dumplings just mixed before the train. came in, and
bread and butter with apple sauoe and cookies. They
made her sit right down and eat, before she even
took her hat off, and they all sat around her and
talked while she ate. It made her feel very much
at home as if somehow she was a real relative.
It came over her once how different all this was
from the house which she had called home all her
life. The fine napery, the cut glass and silver, the
stately butler! And here was she eating off a stone
china plate thick enough for a table top, with a steel
knife and fork and a spoon with the silver worn
off the bowl. She could not help wondering what
her stepmother would have said to the red and white
tablecloth, and the green shades at the windows.
There was an old sofa covered with carpet in the
room, with a flannel patchwork pillow, and a cat
cuddled up cosily beside it purring away like a tea-
kettle boiling. Somehow, poor as it was, it seemed
infinitely more attractive than any room she had
99


100 EXIT BETTY
ever seen before, and she was charmed with the
whole family. Bobbie sat at the other end of the
table with his elbows on the table and his round eyes
on her. When she smiled at him he winked one eye
and grinned and then wriggled down under the table
out of sight.
The mother had tired kind eyes and a firm cheer-
ful mouth like Jane’s. She took Betty right in as if
she had been her sister’s child.
“ Come, now, get back there, Emily. Don’t hang
on Lizzie. She’ll be tired to death of you right at
the start. Give her a little peace while she eats
her supper. How long have you and Jane been
friends, Lizzie? ” she asked, eager for news of her
own daughter.
Betty’s cheeks flushed and her eyes grew troubled.
She was very much afraid that being Lizzie was
going to be hard work:
“ Why, not so very long,” she said hesitatingly.
“ Are you one of the girls in her factory? ”
“ Oh, no! ” said Betty wildly, wondering what
would come next. “ We—just met—that is—why—
out one evening.’ ” she finished desperately.
“ Oh, I see! ” said the mother. “ Yes, she wrote
about going out sometimes, mostly to the movies.
And to church. My children always make it a point
1


EXIT BETTY 101
\
to go to church wherever they are. I brought ’em
up that way. I hope you go to church”
“ I shall love to,” said Betty eagerly.
“ Is your mother living? ” was the next question.
“ No,” answered Betty. “Mother and father
are both dead and I’ve been having rather a hard
time. Jane was kind to me when I was in trouble.”
“ I’ll warrant you! That’s Jane!” beamed her
mother happily. “Jane always was a good girl, if
I do say so. I knew Jane was at her tricks again
when she sent me that telegram.”
“ Ma’s got you a place already!” burst out
Nellie eagerly.
“ Now, Nellie, you said you’d let Ma tell that!”
reproached Bob. “ You never can keep your
mouth shut."
“ There! There! Bob, don’t spoil the evening
with anything unkind,” warned the mother. “ Yes,
Lizzie, I got you a position. It just happened I had
the chance, and I took it, though I don’t really
b’lieve that anythin’ in this world just happens, of
course. But it did seem providential. Mrs. Hatha-
way wanted somebody to look after her little girl.
She’s only three years old and she is possessed to
run away every chance she gets. Course I s’pose
she’s spoiled. Most rich children are. Now, my


102 EXIT BETTY
children wouldn’t have run away. They always
thought too much of what I said to make me trouble.
But that’s neither here nor there. She does it, and
besides her Ma is an invalid. She had an operation,
so she has to lie still a good bit, and can’t be
bothered. She wants somebody just to take the little
girl out walking and keep her happy in the house,
an’ all‘),
“ How lovely! ” exclaimed Betty. “ I shall enjoy
it, I know.”
“ She’s awful pretty!” declared Emily eagerly.
“ Got gold curls and blue eyes just like you, and she
has ever an’ ever so many little dresses, and wears
pink shoes and blue shoes, an’ rides a tricycle.”
“ How interesting! ” said Betty.
“ You’ll get good wages,” said the mother. “ She
said’ she’d give you six dollars a week, an’ mebbe
more, an’ you’d get some of your meals.” J IV
’
“ Then I can pay my board to you,” cried Betty.
“ Don’t worry about that, child. We’ll fix that up
somehow. We’re awful glad to have you come, and
I guess we shall like each other real well. Now,
children, it’s awful late. Get to bed. Scat! Lizzie
can have her bath an’ get to bed, too. Come, mor-
n-
in’s half way here already! ”
The children said good night and Betty was intro:


EXIT BETTY 103
duced to the tin bath tub and improvised bathroom
—a neat little addition to the kitchen evidently in-
tended originally for a laundry. She wanted to
laugh when she saw the primitive makeshifts, but
instead the tears came into her eyes to think how
many luxuries she had taken all her life as a matter
of course and never realized how hard it was for
people who had none. In fact it had never really
entered her head before that there were people who
had no bathrooms.
Betty was not exactly accustomed to washing
her own hair, and with the added problem of the dye
it was quite a task; but she managed it at last, using
all the hot water, to get it so that the rinsing water
was clear, and her hair felt soft. Then, attired in
the same warm nightgown she had worn the night
before, which Jane had thoughtfully put in the suit-
case—otherwise filled with old garments she wished
to send home—Betty pattered upstairs to the little
room with the sloping roof and the dormer window
and crept into bed with Nellie. That young woman
had purposely stayed awake, and kept Betty as long
as she could talk, telling all the wonderful things she
wanted to know about city life, and Betty found her-
self in deep water sometimes because the city life
she knew about was so very different from the city


104 EXIT BETTY
life that Jane would know. But at last sleep won,
and Nellie had to give up because her last question
was answered with silence. The guest was deep
in slumber.
The next morning the children took her over the
house, out in the yard, showing her everything. Then
they had to take her down to the village and explain
all about the little town and its people. They were
crazy about Betty’s beautiful hair and much disap-
pointed when she would insist on wearing her hat.
It was a bright sunny morning, not very cold, and
they told her that nobody wore a hat except to
church or to go on the train, but Betty had a feeling
that her hair might attract attention, and in her
first waking hours a great shadow of horror had
settled upon her when she realized that her people
would leave no stone unturned to find her. It was
most important that she should do or be nothing
whereby she might be recognized. She even thought
of getting a cap and apron to wear when attending
her small charge, but Nellie told her they didn’t do
that in the country and she would be thought stuck
up, so she desisted. But she drew the blue serge
skirt up as high above her waistband as possible
when she dressed in the morning so that she might
look like a little girl and no one would suspect her


- EXIT BETTY 105
of being a runaway bride. Also she had a consulta-
tion with herself in the small hours of the morning
while Nellie was still fast asleep, and settled with
her conscience just what she would tell about her
past and what she would keep to herself. There was
a certain reserve that any one might have, and if
she was frank about a few facts no one would be
likely to question further.
So next morning she told Mrs. Carson that since
her parents’ death she had lived with a woman who
knew her father well, but lately things had been
growing very unpleasant and she found she had to
leave. She had left under such conditions that she
could not bring away anything that belonged to
her, so she would have to work and earn some
more clothes.
Mrs. Carson looked into her sweet eyes and
agreed that it was the best thing she could do; they
might follow her up and make all sorts of trouble
for her in her new home if she wrote for her things;
and so the matter dropped. They were simple folks,
who took things at their face value and were not
over inquisitive. _
On the third day there arrived a long letter from
Jane in which she gave certain suggestions concern-
ing the new member of the family, and ended: “ Ma,


106 EXIT BETTY
she’s got a story, but don’t make her tell any more
of it than she wants. She’s awful sensitive about
it, and trust me, she’s all right! She’s been through
a lot. Just make her feel she’s got some folks that
loves and trusts her.”
Ma, wise beyond her generation and experience,
said no more, and took the little new daughter into
her heart. She took the opportunity to inform the
village gossips that a friend of Jane’s had come to
rest up and get a year’s country air, boarding with
them; and so the amalgamation of Betty Stanhope
into the life of the little town began.
The “ job ” proved to be for only part of the
day, so that Betty was free most of the mornings
to help around the house and take almost a daughter’s
place. That she was a rare girl is proved by the
way she entered into her new life. It was almost as
if she had been born again, and entered into a new
universe, so widely was her path diverging from
everything which had been familiar in the old life.
So deep had been her distress before she came into it
that this new existence, despite its hard and unac-
customed work, seemed almost like heaven.
It is true there was much bad grammar and
slang, but that did not trouble Betty. She had been
brought up to speak correctly, and it was second


EXIT BETTY 10’}
nature to her, but no one had ever drummed it into
her what a crime against culture an illiterate way
of speaking could be. She never got into the way of
speaking that way herself, but it seemed a part of
these people she had come to know and admire so
thoroughly, as much as for a rose to have thorns,
and so she did not mind it. Her other world had
been so all-wrong for years that the hardships of this
one were nothing. She watched them patch and
sacrifice cheerfully to buy their few little plain coarse
new things. She marveled at their sweetness and
content, where those of her world would have
thought they could not exist under the circumstances.
She learned to make that good stew with carrots
and celery and parsley and potatoes and the smallest
possible amount of meat, that had tasted so delicious
the night she arrived. She learned the charms of the
common little bean, and was proud indeed the day
she set upon the table a luscious pan of her own bak-
ing, rich and sweet and brown with their coating
of molasses well baked through them. She even
learned to make bread and never let any one
guess that she had always supposed it some-
thing mysterious.
During the week that Nellie was preparing to
go to the city, Betty had lessons in sewing. Nellie


108 EXIT BETTY
would bring down an old garment, so faded and
worn that it would seem only fit for the rag-bag.
She would rip and wash, dye with a mysterious little
package of stuff, press, and behold, there would come
forth pretty breadths of cloth, blue or brown or
green, or whatever color was desired. It seemed like
magic. And then a box of paper-patterns would be
brought out, and the whole evening would be spent
in contriving how to get out a dress, with the help
of trimmings or sleeves of another material. Betty
would watch and gradually try to help, but she found
there were so many strange things to be considered.
There, for instance, was the up and down of a thing
and the right and wrong of it. It was exactly like
life. And one had to plan not to have both sleeves
for one arm, and to have the nap of the‘ goods run-
ning down always. It was as complicated as learning
a new language. But at the end of the week there
came forth two pretty dresses and a blouse. Betty,
as she sat sewing plain seams and trying to help all
she could, kept thinking of the many beautiful frocks
she had thrown aside in the years gone by, and of the
rich store of pretty things that she had left when she
fled. If only Nellie and Jane and little Emily could
have them! Ah, and if only she herself might have
them now! How she needed them! For a girl who


110 EXIT BETTY ;
get back into her own class? It was impossible. Her
mother had just the one elderly cousin whom she
had always secretly looked to to help her in any
time of need, but his failing her and sending that
telegram without even a good wish in it, just at the
last minute, too, made her feel it was of no use to
appeal to him. Besides, that was the first place her
stepmother would seek for her. She had many good
society friends, but none who would stand by her in
trouble. No one with whom she had ever been inti-
mate enough to confide in. She had been kept
strangely alone in her little world after all, hedged
in by servants everywhere. And now that she was
suddenly on her own responsibility, she felt a great
timidity in taking any step alone. Sometimes at!
night when she thought what she had done she was
so frightened that her heart would beat wildly as if
she were running away from them all yet. It was
like a nightmare that pursued her.
Mrs. Hathaway had sent for her and made
arrangements for her to begin her work with the
little Elise the following week when the present
governess should leave, and Betty felt that this might
prove a very pleasant way to earn her living. The
Hathaways lived in a great brick house away back
from the street in grounds that occupied what in the


EXIT BETTY 111
city would have been a whole block. There was a
high hedge about the place so that one could not see
the road, and there were flower-beds, a great foun-
tain, and a rustic summerhouse. Betty did not see
why days passed in such a pleasant place would not
be delightful in summertime. She was not alto-
gether sure whether she would like to have to be a
sort of servant in the house—and of course these
cold fall days she would have to be much in the house
—but the nursery had a big fireplace in it, a long
chest under the window where toys were kept, and
many comfortable chairs. That ought to be pleasant,
too. Besides, she was not just out looking for pleas-
ant things on this trip. She was trying to get away
from unbearable ones, and she ought to be very
thankful indeed to have fallen on such comfort as
she had.
There was another element in the Carson home
that drew her strongly, although she was shy about
even thinking of it, and that was the frank, out-
spoken Christianity. “ Ma ” tempered all her talk
with it, adjusted all her life to God and what He
would think about her actions, spoke constantly of
what was right and wrong. Betty had never lived
in an atmosphere where right and wrong mattered.
Something sweet and pure like an instinct in her own


112 EXIT BETTY
soul had held her always from many of the ways of
those about her, perhaps the spirit of her sweet
mother allowed to be one of those who “ bear them
up, lest at any time they dash their feet against
a stone.” Or it might have been some memory of
the teachings of her father, whom she adored, and
who in his last days often talked with her alone
about how he and her own mother would Want her
to live. But now, safe and quiet in this shelter of a
real home, poor though it was, the God-instinct
stirred within her, caused her to wonder what He
was, why she was alive, and if He cared? One could
not live with Mrs. Carson without thinking some-
thing about her God, for He was an ever-present
help in all her times of need, and she never hesitated
to give God the glory for all she had achieved, and
for all the blessings she had received.
The very first Sabbath in the little white church
stirred still deeper her awakening interest in spirit-
ual things. The minister’s wife was a sweet-faced
woman who called her “ my dear ” and invited her
to come and see her, and when she began to teach
the lesson Betty found to her amazement that it was
interesting. She spoke of God in much the same
familiar way that “ Ma ” had done, only with a
gentler refinement, and made the girls very sure that


EXIT BETTY 113
whatever anybody else believed, Mrs. Thornley was
a very intimate friend of Jesus Christ. Betty loved
her at once, but so shy was she that the minister’s
wife never dreamed it, and remarked to her husband
Sunday night after church, when they were having
their little quiet Sabbath talk together, that she was
afraid she was going to have a hard time winning
that little new girl that had come to live with
Mrs. Carson.
“ Somehow I can’t get away from the thought
that she comes from aristocracy somewhere,” she
added. “ It’s the way she turns her head, or lifts
her eyes or the quiet assurance with which she an-
swers. And she smiles, Charles, never grins like the
rest. She is delicious, but somehow I find myself
wondering if I have remembered to black my shoes
and whether my hat is on straight, when she looks
at me.”
“ Well, maybe she’s the daughter of some black
sheep who has gone down a peg, and our Father has
sent her here for you to help her back again,” said
her husband with an adorable look at his helper. “ If
anyone can do it you can.”
“ I’m not so sure,” she said, shaking her head.
“ She maybe doesn’t need me. She has Mrs. Carson,
remember, and she is a host in herself. If anybody
8


114 EXIT BETTY
can lead her to Christ she can, plain as she low‘
“ Undoubtedly you were meant to help, too, dear,
IVor she would not have been sent to you.”
His wife smiled brilliantly a look of thorough
understanding: “ Oh, I know. I’m not going to shirk
any but I wish I knew more about her. She is so
sad and quiet, I can’t seem to get at her.”
Even at that moment Betty lay in her little cot
bed under the roof thinking about the minister’ s wife
and what she had said about Christ being always
near, ready to show what to do, if one had the lis-
tening heart and the ready spirit. Would Christ tell
her what to do, she wondered, now right here, if
she were to ask him? Would He show her whether
"to stay in this place or seek further to hide herself
from the world? Would He show her how to earn
her living and make her life right and sweet as it
ought to be.
Then she closed her eyes and whispered softly
under the sheltering bedclothes, “ O Christ, if you
are here, please show me somehow and teach me
to understand.”


EXIT BETTY 117
“ Of course,” said Betty.
“ Well, we’ll get one somehow !h We always do
when we need anything awfully. Look at the bath-
tub! Good-night! I’m goin’ to earn one myself! ”
declared Bob.
“ Mrs. Crosby’s gotta get a new one. P’raps
she’ll sell us her old one cheap.”
That was the way the music idea started, and
nothing else was talked of at the table for days but
how to get a piano. Then one day Emily came rush-
ing home from school all out of breath, her eyes as
bright as stars, and her cheeks like roses. “ Mrs.
Barlow came to our school to-day and talked to the
teacher, and I heard her say she was going away for
the winter. She’s going to store her goods in the
Service Company barn, but she wants to get some-
body to take care of her piano. I stepped right up
and told her my mother was looking for a piano, and
we’d be real careful of it, and she’s just delighted;
and—it’s coming to-morrow morning at nine o’clock!
The man’s going to bring it! ”
She gasped it out so incoherently that they had
to make her tell it over twice to get any sense out of
it; but when Bob finally understood he caught his
little sister in his arms and hugged her with a
big smacking kiss:


118 EXIT BETTY
“ You sure are a little peach, Em’ly! ” he shouted.
“ You’re a pippin of the pippins! I didn’t know you
had that much nerve, you kid, you! I sure am proud
of you! My! Think of havin’ a pianna! Say,
Betty, I can play the base of chopsticks now! ”
The next evening when Betty got home from
the Hathaways there was the piano standing in
the big space opposite the windows in the dining-
room. Ma had elected to have it there rather than
in the front room, because it might often be too oold
in the front room for the children to practice, and
besides it wouldn’t be good for the piano. So the
piano became a beloved member of the family, and
Betty began to give instructions in music, wondering
at herself that she knew how, for her own music had
been most desultory, and nobody had ever cared
whether she practiced or not. She had been allowed
to ramble among the great masters for the most
part unconducted, with the meagerest technique, and
her own interpretation. She could read well and
her sense of time and rhythm were natural, else she
vould have made worse work of it than. she did.
But she forthwith set herself to practicing, realizing
that it might yet stand her in good stead since she
had to earn her living.
Little Emily and Bob stood one on either side and


EXIT BETTY 119
watched her as she played, with wondering admira-
tion, and when Betty went to help their mother Bob
would sit down and try to imitate what she had done.
Failing, he would fall headlong into the inevitable
chopsticks, beating it out with the air of a master.
It was the piano that brought to Betty’s realiza-
tion the first real meaning of the Sabbath day. Bob
came down early and went at the piano as usual,
banging out chopsticks, and a one—fin.gered arrange-
ment of “ The Long, Long Trail,” while his mother
was getting breakfast. Betty was making the coffee,
proud of the fact that she had learned how. But
Bob had accomplished only a brief hint of his regular
program when the music stopped suddenly and Betty
glanced through the kitchen door to see Ma standing
with her hand on her son’s shoulder and a look on
her face she had not seen before: It was quite gentle,
but it was decided:
“ No, Bob! We won’t have that kinda music on
Sunday,” she said. “ This is God’s day, an’ we’ll
have all we can rightly do to keep it holy without
luggin’ in week-day music to make us forget it.
You just get t’ work an’ lear n ‘ Safely Through An-
other Week,’ an’ if you can’t play it right you get
Lizzie to teach you."
Bob pouted:


120 EXIT BETTY
“ There ain’t nothin’ wrong with chopsticks, Ma.
’Tain’t got words to it.”
“ Don’t make a.ny diffrence. It b’longs to week-
days an’ fun, an’ anyhow it makes you think of other
things, an’ you can’t keep your mind on God. That’s
what Sunday was made fer, to kinda tone us up to
God, so’s we won’t get so far away in the week that
we won’t be any kind of ready for heaven some time.
An’ anyhow, ’tisn’t seemly. You better go learn
your Golden Text, Bob. The ministefll be disap-
pointed if you don’t have it fine.”
Betty stood by the window thoughtfully looking
out. Was that what Sunday was made for, or was it
only a quaint idea of this original woman? She
wished she knew. Perhaps some time she would
know the minister’s wife well enough to ask. She
would have liked to ask Ma more about it, but some-
how felt shy. But Ma herself was started now, and
when she came back to the kitchen, as if she felt
some explanation was due the new inmate of the
family, she said:
“ I don’t know how you feel about it. I know
city folks don’t always hold to the old ways. But it
always seemed to me God meant us to stick to Sun-
day, and make it diff’rent from other days. I never
would let my children go visitin’, nor play ball, an’


122 EXIT BETTY
“ Why, believe that He’ll do it. He said ‘ Come
unto me, an’ I will give you rest,’ an’ He said, ‘ Cast
your burden on the Lord,’ an’ He said ‘ Castin’ all
yer care ’pon Him, fer He careth fer you,’ an’ a
whole lot more such things, an’ you just‘ got to take
it fer straight, an’ act on it.”
“ But how could I? ” asked Betty.
“Just run right up to your room now, while
you’re feelin’ that way, an’ kneel down by your bed
an’ tell Him what you just told me,” said Mrs. Car-
son, stirring the fried potatoes with her knife to
keep them from burning. “ It won’t take you long,
an’ I’ll tend the coffee. Just you tell Him you want
Him to take care of you, an’ you’ll believe what I
told you He said. It’s all in the Bible, an’ you can
read it for yourself, but I wouldn’t take the time now.
Just run along an’ speak it out with Him, and, tliefl
come down to breakfast.”
Betty was standing by the kitchen door, her hand
on her heart, as if about to do some great wonderful
thing that frightened her_:
“ But, Mrs. Carson, suppose, maybe, He might
not be pleased with me. Suppose I’ve done some-
thing that He doesn’t like, something that makes
Him ashamed of me.”
“ Oh, why, didn’t you know He fixed for all that


EXIT BETTY 123
when He sent His Son to be the Saviour of the
world? We all do wrong things, an’ everybody
has sinned. But ef we’re rightly sorry, He’ll fergive
us, and make us His children.”
Betty suddenly sat down in a chair near the door:
“ But, Mrs. Carson, I’m not sure I am sorry-at
least I know I’rn not. I’m afraid I’d do it all over
again if I got in the same situation.”
Mrs. Carson stood back from the stove and sur-
veyed her thoughtfully a moment:
“ Well, then, like’s not it wasn’t wrong at all,
and if it wasn’t He ain’t displeased. You can bank
on that. You better go talk it out to Him. Just
get it off your mind. I’ll hold up breakfast a min-
ute while you roll it on Him and depend on it he’ll
show you in plenty of time for the next move."
Betty with her cheeks very red and her eyes shin-
ing went up to her little cot, and with locked door
knelt and tried to talk to God for the first time in
her life. It seemed queer to her, but when she arose
and hurried back to her duties she had a sense of
having a real Friend who knew all about her and
could look after things a great deal better than
she could.
That night she went with Bob and Emily to the
young people’s meeting and heard them talk about


124 EXIT BETTY
Christ familiarly as if they knew Him. It was all
strange and new and wonderful to Betty, and she sat
listening and wondering. The old question of
wliethercshe was pleasing her earthly father was
merging itself into the desire to please her Heav-
enly Father.
There were of course many hard and unpleasant
things about her new life. There were so many
things to learn, and she was so awkward at work
of all kinds! Her hands seemed so small and inade-
quate when she tried to wring clothes or scrub a dirty
step. Then, too, her young charge, Elise Hathaway,
was spoiled and hard to please, and she was daily
tried by the necessity of inventing ways of discipline
for the poor little neglected girl which yet would
not bring down a protest from her even more undis-
ciplined mother. If she had been independent she
would not have remained with Mrs. Hathaway, for
sometimes the child was unbearable in her naughty
tantrums, and it took all her nerve and strength
to control her. She would. come back to the little
gray house too weary even to smile, and the keen eye
of Ma would look at her wisely and wonder if some-
thing ought not to be done about it.
Betty felt that she must keep this place, of course,
because it was necessary for her to be able to pay
z


EXIT BETTY 125
some board. She could not be beholden to the Car-
sons. And they had been so kind, and were teaching
her so many things, that it seemed the best and safest
place she could be in. So the days settled down
into weeks, and a pleasant life grew up about her,
so different from the old one that more and more
the hallucination was with her that she had
become another creature, and the old life had gone
out forever.
Of course as striking-looking a girl as Betty could
not enter into the life of a little town even as humbly
as through the Carson home, without causing some
comment and speculation. People began to notice
her. The church ladies looked after her and re-
marked on her hair, her complexion, and her grace-
ful carriage, and some shook their heads and said
they should think Mrs. Hathaway would want to
know a little more about her before she put her only
child in her entire charge; and they told weird
stories about girls they had known or heard of.
Down at the fire-house, which was the real clear-
ing-house of Tinsdale for all the gossip that came
along and went the rounds, they took up the matter
in full session several evenings in succession. Some
of the younger members made crude remarks about
Betty’s looks, and some of the older ones allowed


I26 EXIT BETTY
that she was entirely too pretty to be without a his-
tory. They took great liberties with their surmises.
The only two, the youngest of them all, who might
have defended her, had been unconsciously snubbed
by her when they tried to be what Bobbie called
“ fresh ” with her, and so she was at their mercy.
But if she had known it she probably would have been
little disturbed. They seemed so far removed from
her two worlds, so utterly apart from herself. It
would not have occurred to her that they could do her
any harm.
One night the fire-house gang had all assembled
save one, a little shrimp iof a good-for-nothing,
nearly hairless, toothless, cunning-eyed, and given to
drink when he could lay lips on any. He had a wide
loose mouth with a tendency to droop crookedly,
and his hands were always clammy and limp. He
ordinarily sat tilted back against the wall to the right
of the engine, sucking an old clay pipe. .He had a
way of often turning the conversation to imply some
deep mystery known only to himself behind the life
of almost any one discussed. He often added choice
embellishments to whatever tale went forth as au-
thentic to go the rounds of the village, and he acted
the part of a collector of themes and details for the
evening conversations.


128 EXIT BETTY
Bi surrendered his paper with the air of one grant-
ing a high favor and sank to his chair and his pipe.
“ How’s crops in the city P” asked Hank Fielder,
and Bi’s tale was set a-going. Bi could talk; that was
one thing that always made him welcome.
Dunc was deep in the paper. Presently he turned
it over:
“ Whew! ” he said speculatively. “ If that don’t
look like that little lollypop over to Carson’s I’ll eat
my hat! VVhat’s her name? ”
They all drew around the paper and leaned over
Dunc’s shoulder squinting at the picture, all but Bi,
who was lighting his pipe:
“ They’re as like as two peas! ” said one.
“ It sure must be her sister! ” declared another.
“ Don’t see no resemblance ’tall,” declared the
chief, flinging back to his comfortable chair. “ She’s
got short hair, an she’s only a kid. This one’s
growed up! ”
“ She might a cut her hair,” suggested one.
Bi pricked up his ears, narrowed his cunning
eyes, and slouched over to the paper, looking at the
picture keenly :
“ Read it out, Dunc! ” he commanded.
“ Five thousand dollars reward for information
concerning Elizabeth Stanhope! ”


CHAPTER X
(I
WELL, he gave me notice t’day,” said James
Ryan sadly as Jane and he rounded the corner from
her boarding-house and turned toward their favorite
movie theater. “ I been expectin’ it, an’ now
it’s come! ”
Jane stopped short on the sidewalk appalled:
“ He gave you notice! ’_’ she exclaimed, as if
she could not believe it was true. “ Now, Jimmie!
You don’t mean it? Did he find any fault? He’d
better not! B’leeve me, if he did he gets a piece of
my mind, even if I am a poor workin’ girl! ”
“ Oh, no, he didn’t find any fault,” said Jimmie
cheerfully. “He was awful nice! He said he’d
recommend me away up high. He’s gonta give me
time every day to hunt a new place, an’ he’s gonta
recommend me to some of his rich friends.”
“ But what’s the matter of him keepin’ you?
Did you ast him that? ”
“ Oh, he told me right out that things wasn’t
working the way he hoped when he started; the war
and all had upset his prospects, and he couldn’t afford
to keep me. He’s gonta take an office way down
180


EXIT BETTY 133
asked in a breathless whisper, as a new feature film
began to dawn on the screen.
“ Oh, she’s mebbe elop-ed,” said the wise young
man, “ or there might be some trouble about prop-
erty. There mostly is.”
Jane said no more, and the pictures began again,
but her mind was not following them. She was very
quiet on the way’ home, and when Jimmie asked her
if she had a grouch on she shivered and said, no, she
guessed she was tired. Then she suddenly asked him
what time he was going out to hunt for another job.
He told her he couldn’t be sure. He would call her
up about noon and let her know. Could she manage
to get out a while and meet him? She wasn’t sure
either, but would see when he called her up. And
so they parted for the night.
The next morning when Reyburn entered his
office Jimmie was already seated at his typewriter.
On Reyburn’s desk lay a neatly typed copy of the
announcement that had been put on the screen the
night before.
“What’s this, Ryan?” he questioned as he took
his seat and drew the paper toward him. .
“ Something I saw last night on the screen at
the movies, sir. ' I thought it might be of interest.”
“ Were you thinking of trying for the reward? ”


EXIT BETTY 185
thoughtful of you. I scarcely think there would be
any possibility of my finding out anything about this
girl, but I certainly appreciate your thoughtfulness.
I’ll make a note of it, and if anything turns up I’ll
let you know. I don’t believe, however, that I would
care to go after a reward even through some one else.
You know, I was at that wedding, Ryan! ” His eyes
were dreamily watching the smoke from a distant
funnel over the roof-tops in line with his desk. _ I I
“You were!” said Jimmie, watching his em-
ployer with rapt admiration. He had no higher am-
bition than to look like Warren Reybur n and have
an office of his own.
“ Yes, I was there,” said Reybur n again, but his
tone was so far off that Jimmie dared approach no
nearer, and resumed the letter he was typing.
About noon Jimmie called up the factory while
Reyburn was out to lunch and told Jane that he ex-
pected to go out at two o’clock. Could she meet him
and walk a little way with him? Jane said no, she
couldn’t, but she would try and see him the next
day, then he could tell her how he had “ made out.”
‘ M At exactly five minutes after two, Jane, having
watched from a telephone booth in a drug store
until Jimmie went by, hurried up to Reyburn’s office
and tapped on the door, her heart in her mouth lest


186 EXIT BETTY
he should be occupied with some one else and not be
able to see her before her few minutes of leave
which she had obtained from the factory should
have expired.
Reyburn himself opened the door to her, and
treated her as if she had been a lady every inch, hand-
ing her a chair and speaking quite as if she were
attired in sealskin and diamonds.
She looked him over with bright eyes of approval.
Jane was a born sentimentalist, fed on the movies.
Not for anything would she have had a knight rescue
her lady fair who did not look the part. She
was entirely satisfied with this one. In fact, she was
almost tongue-tied with admiration for the moment.
Then she rallied to the speech she had prepared:
“ Mr. Reyburn,” she said, “ I came to see you
about a matter of very great importance. I heard
you was a great lawyer, and I’ve got a friend that’s
in trouble. I thought mebbe you could do something
about it. But first, I want to ast you a question, an’
I want you to consider it perfectly confidential!”
Jane took great credit to herself that she had
assembled all these Words and memorized them
so perfectly.
“ Certainly!” said Reyburn gravely, wondering
what kind of a customer he had now.


EXIT BETTY 137
“ I don’t want you to think I can’t pay for it,”
said Jane, laying down a five-dollar bill grandly.
“ I know you can’t afford to waste your valuable
time even to answer a question.”
“ Oh, that’s all right,” said Reyburn heartily.
“ Let me hear what the question is first. There may
be no charge.”
“ No,” said Jane hastily, laying the bill firmly
on the desk before him. “ I shan’t feel right astin’
unless I know it’s to be paid for.”
“ Oh, very well,” said Reyburn, taking the bill
and laying it to one side. “ Now, what is
the question?”
“ Well, Mr. Reyburn, will you please tell me
what would anybody want to offer a reward, a big
reward, like a thousand dollars—or several of them,
-—for lI'lf0I1’I131’l0Il about any one? Could you think
of any reason?” I
Reyburn started. Reward again! This was un-
canny. Probably this girl had been to the movies
and seen the same picture that Ryan had told him
about. But he smiled gravely and answered, watch-
ing her quizzically the while:
“ Well, they might love the person that had
disappeared,” he suggested at random.
“ Oh, no!” said Jane decidedly. “ They didn’t!


EXIT BETTY 139
“ Well, there’s just one more,” she said, looking
down at her paper. “ If a man was trying to make a
girl marry him when she just hated him, could any-
body make her do it, and would anybody have a right
to put her in an insane ’sylum or anythin’ ef
she wouldn’t? ”
“ Why, no, of course not! Where did you ever
get such a ridiculous idea?” He sat up suddenly,
annoyed beyond expression over disturbing sugges-
tions that seemed to rise like a bevy of black bats all
around the borders of his mind.
“ See here,” he said, sitting up very straight. “ I
really can’t answer any more blind questions. I’ve
got to know what I’m talking about. Why, I may
be saying the most impossible things without know-
ing it.”
“ I know,” said Jane, looking at him gravely.
“ I’ve thought of that, but you’ve said just the things
I thought you would. Well, say, if I tell you about
it can you promise on yer honor you won’t ever
breathe a word of it? Not to nobody? Whether
you take the case or not?”
“ Why, certainly, you can trust me to look out
for any confidence you may put in me. If you
can’t I should prefer that you say nothing more.”
“ Oh, I c’n trust you all right,” said Jane smiling.


140 EXIT BETTY ‘
“ I just mean, would you be ’lowed to keep it under
yer hat? ”
“ Would I be allowed? What do you mean? ”
“ I mean would the law let you? You wouldn’t
have to go an’ tell where she was or nothin’ an’ give
her away? You’d be ’lowed to keep it on the q. t. an’
take care of her? ”
“ You mean would it be right and honorable for
me to protect my client? Why, certainly.”
“ Well, I mean you wouldn’t get into no trouble
if you did.”
“ Of course not.”
“ .W€ll, then I’ll tell you."


CHAPTER XI
JANE opened a; small shabby handbag, and took
out a folded newspaper, opening it up and spreading
it on the desk before him. “ There! ” she said, and
then watched his face critically.
Reyburn looked, and found himself looking into
Betty’s eyes. Only a newspaper cut, and poor at
that, but wonderfully real and mournful, as they
had struck him when she lifted them for that swift
glance before she sank in the church aisle.
“ Where did you get this? ” he asked, his voice
suddenly husky.
“ Out o’ the mornin’ paper.” Her tone was low
and excited. “ Were you wanting to try for the
reward?” Reybur n asked.
There was a covert sneer in the question from
which the girl shrank perceptibly. She sprang to
her feet, her eyes flashing:
“ If that’s what you take me for, I better be
goin’ ! ” she snapped and reached out her hand for
the paper. But Reyburn’s hand covered the paper,
and his tone was respectful and apologetic as he said:
“ Excuse me, I didn’t quite understand, I see.
141


142 EXIT BETTY
Sit down, please. You and I must understand each
other or there is no use in our talking. You can
trust me to keep this conversation entirely to myself,
whatever the outcome. Will you tell me what it is
you want of me? ”
Jane subsided into a chair, tears of excitement
springing into her eyes.
“ Well, you see, it’s pretty serious business,” she
said, making a dab at the corner of one eye. “ I
thought I could trust you, or I wouldn’t a oome.
But you gotta take me on trust, too.”
“ Of course,” said Reyburn. “ Now, what have
you to do with this girl? Do you know Where
she is?”
“ I certainly do!” said Jane, but I ain’t a-goin’
ta tell until you say if there’s anything you can
do fer her. ’Cause you see, if you can’t find a way
to help her, I’ve gotta do it myself, an’ it might get
you into trouble somehow fer you to know what you
ain’t supposed to know.”
“ I see,” said Reyburn, meekly. “ Well, what are
you going to tell me? Am I allowed to ask that? ”
I Jane grinned.
“ Say, you’re kiddin’ me! I guess you are all
right. Well, I’1l just tell you all about it. One
night last November,—you can see the date there in


EXIT BETTY 143
the paper, I was goin’ home to my boardin’ house
in Camac Street, an’ I was passin’ the side of that
church on 18th an’ Spruce, where the weddin’ was-.
you know, fer you was there! ”
Reyburn looked at her astonished.
“ How did you know I was there?”
“ I saw you through the window, over against
the wall to the street side‘ of the altar,” said
Jane calmly.
“ How did you know me? ”
“ Oh, somebody I know pointed you out once an’
said you was goin’ to be one of the risin’ lawyers of
the day,” she answered nonchalantly, her face
quite serious.
A flicker of amusement passed like a ray of light
through his eyes, but his face was entirely grave as
he ignored the compliment.
“ Go on ! ”
“I saw there was a weddin‘ an’ I stopped to
watch a minute, ’cause I expect to get married myself
some day, an’ I wanted to see how they did things.
But I couldn’t get near the door, an’ the windows
were all high up. I could only see folks who were
standing up like you were. So I thought I’d go on.
I turned the corner and went long-side the church
listenin’ to the music, an’ just as I passed a big


144 EXIT BETTY
iron gate at the back end of the church somebody
grabbed me an’ begged me to help ’em.“‘1‘1o<>1€¢<i
round, an’ there was the bride, all in her white togs,
with the prettiest white satin slippers, in the wet an’
mud! I tried to get her line, but she cried out
somebody was comin’ back in the passageway, so I
slipped off my coat an’ hat and whisked her into ’em
an’ clapped my rubbers over her satin shoes, and we
beat it round the corner. I took her to my room, an’
gave her some supper. She was all in. Then I put
her to bed, an’ she told me a little bit about it. She
didn’t tell me much. Only that they had been tryin’
fer a long time back to make her marry a man she
hated, an’ now they’d almost tricked her into it, an‘
she’d die if she had to do it. She wanted to ex-
change clothes with me, cause, of course, she couldn’t
get anywhere togged out that way, so we changed
things, an’ I fixed her up. In the mornin’ I ran out
an’ got a paper, an’ found they was sayin’ she was
temporary insane, an’ stuff like that, an’ so I saw
their game was tryin‘ to get her in a ’sylum till
they could make her do what they wanted. I fixed
her up an’ got her off to a place I know where she’d
be safe. An’ she’s got a job an’ doin’ real well.
But now they’ve got this here reward business out
everywhere in the papers an’ the movies, she a.in’t


EXIT BETTY 145
safe nowhere. An’ I want somebody that’s wiser’ n
me to take a holt an’ do somethin’. I can’t pay much,
but I’l1 pay a little every month as long's I live ef
it takes that long to pay yer bill, an’ I have a notion"
she may have some money herself, though she didn’t
say nothin’ about it. But there’s a ring she left
with me t6H sell, to pay fer what I gave her. It
oughtta be worth somethin’. It looks real. I ain’t
sold it. I couldn’t. I thought she might want
it sometime ’
But Reyburn interrupted her excitedly.
“ Do you mean to say that Miss Stanhope is in
the city and you know where she is? ”
“ Now, don’t get excited,” warned Ja.ne coolly.
“ I didn’t say she was in this city, did I? I didn’t
say where she Was, did I? I said she was safe.”
“ But are you aware that you have told me a very
strange story? What proof can you give _Omewtlialiit
is true?”
Jane looked at him indignantly‘.
“ Say, I thought you was goin’ to trust me? I
have to trust you, don’t I? Course you don’t know
who I am, an’ I haven’t told you, but I’ve got a good
p’sition myself, an’ I don’t go round tellin’ privari-
cations! An’ there’s the weddin’ dress, an’ veil and
fixin’s! I got them. You can see ’em if you like,
3
10


EXIT BE'I‘TY 149
None of the questions that he asked were noticeable.
He merely led the conversation into certain grooves.
The lady was an old resident and well known in the
higher social circles. She knew all there was to
know about everybody and she loved to tell it. She
never dreamed that he had any motive in leading
her on.
He dropped into a. bank and asked a few ques-
tions, called up an address they gave him and made
another inquiry, then dropped around to his cousin’s
home for a few minutes, where he allowed her to tell
all she knew about the Stanhope wedding they had
attended together, and the different theories con-
cerning the escaped bride. Quite casually he asked
if she knew whether the bride had property of her
own, if so who were her guardians. His cousin
thought she knew a lot, but, sifting it down, he dis-
covered that it was nearly all hearsay or surmise.
When he reached Jane Carson’s boarding house
he found that young woman ensconced in a tiny
room, nine by twelve, a faded ingrain carpet on
the floor, a depressed looking bed lounge against the
bleary wall-paper, beneath crayon portraits of the
landlady’s dead husband and sons. There was a
rocking-chair, a trunk, a cane-seat chair, and an oil
stove turned up to smoking point in honor of the


I50 EXIT BETTY
caller, but there was little room left for the caller.
On the top of the trunk reposed a large pasteboard
box securely tied.
Jane, after a shy greeting, untied the strings and
opened the cover, having first carefully slipped the
bolt of the door.
“You can’t be too careful,” she said. “You
never can tell.”
Reyburn stood beside her and looked in a kind
of awe at the glistening white, recognized the thick
texture of the satin, the rare quality of the rose-
point lace with which it was adorned, caught the
faint fragrance of faded orange blossoms wafting
from the filmy mist of the veil as Jane lifted it
tenderly; then leaned over and touched a finger to
the pile of whiteness, reverently, as though he were
paying a tribute at a lovely shrine.
Jane even unwrapped the little slippers, one at a
time, and folded them away again, and they said no
word until it was all tied back in its papers, Reyburn
assisting with the strings.
“ Now, ef you don’t mind waitin’ a minute I
guess it would be safer to put it away now,” she said
as she slipped the bolt and ran upstairs.
She was back in a minute and sat down opposite
to him, drawing out from the neck of her blouse a


152 EXIT BETTY
no time to waste if she is really in danger, as
you think.”
Jane’s eyes glittered with satisfaction.
“ There’s a train at ten-thirty. You’ll get there
in the morning. I’ve written it all down here on a
paper so you can’t make any mistakes. I’ve written
l her a letter so she’ll understand and tell you every-
thin’. I’ll wire Ma, too, so she’ll let you see her.
Ma might not size you up right.”
Reyburn wondered at the way he accepted his
orders from this coolly impudent girl, but he liked
her in spite of himself.
In a few minutes more he was out in the street
again, hurrying to his own apartment, where he put
together a few necessities in a bag and went to
the train.


CHAPTER XII
I1‘ was one of those little ironies of fate that are
spoken about so much, that when Warren Reybum
alighted from the train in T insdale Abijah Gage
should be supporting one corner of the station, and
contributing a quid now and then to the accumula-
tions of the week scattered all about his feet.
He spotted the stranger at once and turned his
cunning little eyes upon him, making it obvious that
he was bulging with information. It was, therefore,
quite natural, when Reybur n paused to take his bear-
ings, that Bi should speak up and inquire if he was
looking for some one. Reyburn shook his head and
passed on, but Bi was not to be headed ofl’ so easily
as that. He shufied after him:
“ Say! ” he said, pointing to a shackley horse and
buckboard that stood near, belonging to a pal over
at the freight house. “ Ef you want a lift I’ll take
you along.”
“Thank you, no,” said Reyburn, smiling; “ I’m
not going far.”
“ Say! ” said Bi again as he saw his quarry about
to disappear. “ You name ain’t Bains, is it? ”
153


154 EXIT BETTY
“ No! ” said Reyburn, quite annoyed by the per-
sistent old fellow.
“ From New York? ” he hazarded cheerfully.
“ N o,” answered Reyburn, turning to go. “ You
must excuse me. I’m in a hurry.”
“That’s all right,” said Bi contentedly. “ I’l1
walk a piece with you. I was lookin’ fer a doctor
to take down to see a sick child. A doctor from New
York. You ain’t by any chance a doctor, are you? ”
Bi eyed the big leather bag inquiringly.
“ No,” said Reyburn, laughing in spite of his
annoyance. “ I’m only a lawyer.” And with a
bound he cleared the curb and hurried off down
the street, having now recognized the direction de-
scribed in Jane’s diagram of Tinsdale.
Abijah Gage looked after him with twinkling
eyes of dry mirth, and slowly sauntered after him,
watching him until he entered the little unpainted
gate of the Carson house and tapped at the old gray
door. Then Bi lunged across the street and entered
a path that ran along the railroad track for a few
rods, curving suddenly into a stretch of vacant lots.
On a convenient fence rail with a good outlook
toward the west end of the village he ensconced him-
self and set about whittling a whistle from some
willow stalks. He waited until he saw Bobbie Car-


156 EXIT BETTY
form, nor notice that he slid into the office building
behind him and took the same elevator up, crowding
in behind two fat men and elfacing himself against
the wall of the cage. Reybum was reading his paper,
and did not look up. The figure slid out of the ele-
vator after him and slithered into a shadow, watching
him, slipping softly after, until sure which door he
took, then waited silently until sure that the door
was shut. No one heard the slouching footsteps
come down the marble hall. Bi Gage always wore
rubbers when he went anywhere in particular. He
had them on that morning. He took careful note
of the name on the door: “ Warren Reyburn, Attor-
ney-at—Law,” and the number. Then he slid down
the stairs as unobserved as he had oome, and made
his way to a name and munber on a bit of paper
from his pocket which he consulted in the shelter
of a doorway.
When Warren Reyburn started on his first trip
to Tinsdale his mind was filledwith varying emotions.
He had never been able to quite get away from
the impression made upon him by that little white
bride lying so still amid her bridal finery, and the
glowering bridegroom above her. It epitomized for
him all the unhappy marriages of the world, and he
‘felt like starting out somehow in hot pursuit of that


EXIT BETTY 157
‘U’!
bridegroom and making him answer for the sadness
of his bride. Whenever the matter had been brought
to his memory he had always been conscious of the
first gladness he had felt when he knew she had
escaped. It could not seem to him anything but a
happy escape, little as he knew about any of the
people who played the principal parts in the little
tragedy he had witnessed.
Hour after hour as he sat in the train and tried
to sleep or tried to think he kept wondering at him-
self that he was going on this “ wild goose chase,”
as he called it in his innermost thoughts. Yet he
knew he had to go. In fact, he had known it
from the moment James Ryan had shown him the
advertisement Not that he had ever had any idea
of trying for that horrible reward. Simply that
his soul had been stirred to its most knightly depths
to try somehow to protcxt her in her hiding. Of
course, it had been a mere crazy thought then, with
no way of fulfilment, but when the chance had
offered of really finding her and asking if there was
anything she would like done, he knew from the
instant it was suggested that he was going to do it,
even if he lost every other business chance he ever
had or expected to have, even if it took all his time
and every cent he could borrow. He knew he had


158 EXIT BETTY
to try to find that girl! The thought that the only
shelter between her and the great awful world lay
in the word of ianV’untaught girl like Jane Carson
filled him with terror for her. If that was true, the
sooner some one of responsibility and sense got to
her the better. The questions he had asked of
various people that afternoon ‘had revealed more
than he had already guessed of the character of the
bridegroom to whom he had taken such a strong
dislike on first sight.
Thus he argued the long night through between
the fitful naps he caught when he was not wonder-
ing if he should find her, and whether he would
know her from that one brief sight of her in church.
How did he know but this was some game put up
on him to get him into a mix-up? He must go cau-
tiously, and on no account do anything rash or
make any promises until he had first fO11I1t'l.‘O11lIiI3.lli
about her.
When morning dawned he was in a state of per-
turbation quite unusual for the son a.nd grandson
of renowned lawyers noted for their calmness and
poise under all circumstances. This perhaps was
why the little incident with Abijah Gage at the sta-
tion annoyed him so extremely. He felt he was do-
ing a questionable thing in taking this journey at all.


160 EXIT BETTY
strangely ill at ease and began to be convinced that
he was on the very wildest of wild goose chases. To
think of expecting to find Elizabeth Stanhope in a
place like this! If she ever had been here she cer-
tainly must have flown faster than she had from the
church on her wedding night.
So, instead of beginning as he had planned, to
put a list of logically prepared keen questions to a
floundering and suspecting victim, he found the clear
eyes of Ma looking into his unwaveringly and the
wise tongue of Ma putting him through a regular
orgy of catechism before she would so much as admit
that she had ever heard of a girl named Lizzie Hope.
Then he bethought him of her daughter’s letter
handed it over for her to read.
“ Well,” she admitted at last, half satisfied, “ she
isn’t here at present. I sent her away when I found
you was comin’. I wasn’t sure I’d let you see her at
all if I didn’t like your looks.”
“That’s right, Mrs. Carson,” he said heartily,
with real admiration in his voice. “ I’m glad she has
some one so careful to look out for her. Your
daughter*said‘she was in a good safe place, and I
begin to see she knew what she was talking about."
Then the strong look around Ma’s lips settled
into the sweeter one, and she sent Bob after the girl.


EXIT BETTY 161
“ Are you a friend of hers ” she asked, Watching
him keenly.
“ N 0,” said Reyburn. “ I’ve never seen her but
once. She doesn’t know me at all.”
“ Are you a friend of her—family? ”
“ Oh, no! ”
“ Or any of her friends or relations? ” Ma meant
to be comprehensive.
“ No. I’m sorry I am not. I am a rather
recent comer to the city where she made her home,
I understand.” _
Ma looked at him thoughtfully for a moment.
It wouldn’t have been called a stare, it was too
kindly for that, but Reyburn thought to himself
that he would not have liked to have borne her
scrutiny if he had anything to conceal, for he felt
as if she might read the truth in his eyes.
“ Are you—please excuse me for askin’—but are
you a member of any church? ”
Reyburn flushed, and wanted to» laugh, but was
embarrassed in spite of himself:
“ Why, yes—I’m a member,” he said slowly,
then with afrank lifting of his eyes to her troubled
gaze, “ I united with the church when I was a mere
kid, but I’m afraid I’m not much of a member. I
really am not what you’d call ‘ working ’ at it much
11


164 EXIT BETTY
to look cheerful. Reyburn wished he knew how to
comfort her.
“ It makes a man feel mean,” he said at last, try-
ing to fit his toe into the pattern of the ingrain carpet,
“ to come home alive and whole when so many
poor fellows had to give their lives. I’ve often won-
dered how I happened to get through.”
She looked at him tenderly:
“ Perhaps your Heavenly Father brought you
back to give you more chance to dIVo things for Him,
an’ get ready to die when your time comes.”
There was something startling to this self-oom-
posed city chap in hearing a thing like this from the
lips of the mother whose beloved son was gone for-
ever beyond her teaching but had “ been ready.”
Reyburn looked at her steadily, soberly, and then
with a queer constriction in his throat he looked
"down at the ‘floor thoughtfully and said:
“ Perhaps He did.”
“ Well, I can’t help bein’ glad you’re a church
‘member, anyhow,” said Mrs. Carson, rising to look
out of the window. “ She needs a Christian to help
her, an’ I’d sooner trust a Christian. If you really
meant it when you joined church you’ve got some-
thin’ to fall back on anyhow. Here she comes. I’ll
just go an’ tell her you’re in here.”


CHAPTER XIII
BETTY, her eyes wide with fear, her face white
as a lily, appeared like a wraith at the parlor door and
looked at him. It gave Reybur n a queer sensation,
as if a picture one had been looking at in a story
book should suddenly become alive and move and
stare at one. As he rose and came forward he still
seemed to see like a dissolving view between them the
little huddled bride on the floor of the church. Then
he suddenly realized that she.’ was trembling.
“ Please don’t be afraid of me, Miss Stanhope,”
he said gently. “ I have only come to help you, and
if after you have talked with me you feel that you
would rather" I should have nothing to do with your
affairs I will go away and no one in the world shall
be the wiser for it. I give you my word of honor."
“Oh!” said Betty, toppling into a chair near
by. “ I—guess—I’m not afraid of you. I just
didn’t know who you might be?-! ” She stopped,
caught her breath and tried to laugh, but it ended
sorrily, almost in a sob.
“ Well, I don’t wonder,” said Reyburn, trying to
find something reassuring to say. “ The truth is,
165


166 EXIT BETTY
I was rather upset about you. I didn’t quite know
who you might turn out to be, you see! ”
“ Oh! ” Betty’s hand slipped up to her throat,
and her lips quivered as she tried to smile.
“ Please don’t feel that way,” he said, “ or I’l1
go away at once.” He was summoning all his cour-
age and hoping she wasn’t going to break down and
cry. How little she was, and sweet! Her eyes
pleaded, just as they did in that one look in the
‘church. How could anybody be unkind to her? ”
“ I’m quite all right,” said Betty with a forced
smile, siting up very straight.
“ Perhaps I’d better introduce myself,” he said,
trying to speak in a very commonplace tone. “ I’m
just a lawyer that your friend Miss Iane Carson sent
out to see if I could be of any service to you. It
may possibly make things a little easier for you if
I explain that while I never had heard of you before,
and have no possible connection with your family or
friends, I happened to be at your wedding! ”
“ Oh! ” said Betty with a little agonized breath.
“ Do you know Mrs. Bryce Cochrane? ” he
asked.
Betty could not have got any whiter, but her
eyes seemed to blanch a trifle.
“ A little,” she said in a very small voice.


EXIT BETTY 167
“ Well, she is my cousin.”
“ Oh! ” said Betty again.
“ Her husband was unable to accompany her to
the wedding, and so I went in his place to escort
Isabel. I knew nothing of your affairs either before
or after the wedding, until this announcement was
brought to my notice, and Miss Carson called on me.”
Betty took the paper in her trembling fingers,
and looked into her own pictured eyes. Then every-
thing seemed to swim before her for a moment. She
pressed her hand against her throat and set her white
lips firmly, looking up at the stranger with a sudden
terror and comprehension.
“ You want to get that five thousand dollars! ”
she said, speaking the words in a daze of trouble.
“ Oh, I haven’t got five thousand dollars! Not
now! But perhaps I could manage to get it if you
would be good enough to wait just a little, till I can.
find a way. Oh, if you knew what it means to me! ”
Warren Reyburn sprang to his feet in horror, a
flame of anger leaping into his eyes.
“ Five thousand dollars be hanged! ” he said
fiercely. “ Do I look like that kind of a fellow? It
may seem aw fully queer to you for an utter stranger
to be butting into your affairs like this unless I did
have some ulterior motive, but I swear to you that


168 EXIT BETTY
I have none. I came out here solely because I
saw that you were in great likelihood of being found
by the people from whom you had evidently run
away. Miss Stanhope, I stood where I could watch
your face when you came up the aisle at your wed-
ding, and something in your eyes just before you
dropped made me wish I could knock that bride-
groom down and take care of you somehow until
you got that hurt look out of your face. I know it
was rather ridiculous for an utter stranger to pre-
sume so far, but when I saw that the sleuths were
out after you, and when the knowledge of your
whereabouts was put into my hands without the
seeking, I wouldn’t have been a man if I hadn’t
come and offered my services. I"m not a very great
lawyer, nor even a very rising one, as your Miss Car-
son seems to think, but I’m a man with a soul to
protect a woman who is in danger, and if that’s you,
I’m at your service. If not, you’ve only to say so
and I’ll take the next train home and keep my
mouth shut!”
He took his watch out and looked at it hastily,
although he had not the slightest idea what it regis-
tered, nor what time the next train for home left.
He looked very tall and strong and commanding as
he stood in his dignity waiting for her answer, and


EXIT BETTY 169
Betty looked up like a little child and trusted him.
“Oh! Please forgive me!” she cried. “ I’ve
been so frightened ever since Bob came after me. I
couldn’t think you had come for any good, because
I didn’t know any one in the world who would want
to help me.”
“ Certainly! ” said Warren Reybur n with a lump
in his throat, sitting down quickly to hide his emo-
tion. “ Please consider me a friend, and com-
mand me.”
“Thank you,” said Betty taking a deep breath
and trying to crowd back the tears. “ I’m afraid
there isn’t any way to help me, but I’m glad to have
a friend, and I’m sorry I was so rude.”
“ You weren’t rude, and that was a perfectly
natural conclusion from my blundering beginning,”
he protested, looking at the adorable waves of hair
that framed her soft cheeks. “ But there is always
a way to help people when they are in trouble, and
I’m here to find out what it is. Do you think you
could trust me enough to tell me what it’s all about?
Miss Carson didn’t seem to know much or else she
didn’t feel free to say.”
“ I didn’t tell her much,” said Betty, lifting her
sea-blue eyes. “ She was a stranger, too, you know.”
“ Well, she’s a mighty good friend of yours, I’ll


172 EXIT BETTY
“ After father came home she used to slip over
every day to see me while he was at his business, and
he was grateful to her for making me happy. Then
he found out that she was in trouble, had lost her
money or something, and wanted to get a position
teaching. He arranged to have her teach me, and so
she camelto our house to stay.
“ Somehow after that I never seemed to see so
much of my father as I used to do, for she was always
there, but at first I didn’t care, because she was nice
to me, and always getting up things to keep me busy
and happy. She would make my father buy expen-
sive toys and books and games for me, and fine
clothes, and so of course I was pleased. In about
a year my father married her, and at first it seemed
very beautiful to me to have a real mother, but little
by little I began to see that she preferred to be alone
with my father and did not want me around so much.
It was very hard to give up the companionship of
my father, but my stepmother kept me busy with
other things, so that I really didn’t think much about
it while it was first happening.
“ But one day there came, a letter. I remember’
it came while we were at breakfast, and my father got
very white and stern when he read it, and handed it
over to my mother and asked whether it was true,


174 EXIT BETTY
body was trying to be nice and polite, but under-
neath it all there was a kind of lightning of all kinds
of feelings, hurt feelings and wrong ones and right
ones all mixed up.
“ Only the two boys didn’t seem to feel it much.
They sort of took things for granted, as if that had
always been their home, and they didn’t act very
polite. It seemed to trouble my father, who looked
at them so severely that it almost choked me, and I
couldn’t go on eating my dinner. He didn’t seem
like my dear father when he looked like that. I
always used to watch my father, and he seemed make the day for me. If he was sad, then I was sad;
and if he was glad then I was happy all over, until
one day my stepmother noticed me and said: ‘ See,
dear little Elizabeth is trembling. You ought not to
speak that way before her, Charles.’ And then father
looked at me, and all suddenly I learned to smile
when I didn’t feel like it. I smiled back to him to let him know it didn’t matter what he did, I
would love him anyhow! ”
During the recital Reyburn had sat with cour-
teous averted gaze as though he would not trouble
her with more of his presence than was absolutely
necessary. Now he gave her a swift glance.
Betty’s eyes were off on distance, and she was


, EXIT BET'I‘Y 1'/5
talking from the depths of her heart, great tears
welling into her eyes. All at once she remembered
the stranger:
“ I beg your pardon,” she said, and brushed her
hand across her eyes. “ I haven’t gone over it to!
any one ever, and I forgot you would not be inter-
ested in details.”
“ Please don’t mind me. I am interested in every
detail you are good enough to give me. It all makes
the background of the truth, you know, and ¢that is
what I am after,” said Reyburn, deeply touched.
“ I think you are wonderful to tell me all this. I
shall regard it most sacredly.”
Betty flashed a look of gratitude at him, and
noticed the sympathy in his face. It almost un-
iierved her, but she went on:
“ The oldest boy was named Bessemer, and he
wasn’t very good-looking. He was very tall and
awkward, and always falling over things. He had
little pale eyes, and hardly any chin. His teeth
projected, too, and his hair was light and very
‘straight and thin. His mother didn’t seem to love
him very much, even when he was a little boy. She
bullied him and found fault with him continually,
and quite often I felt very sorry for him, although I
wasn’t naturally attracted to him. He wasn’t really


176 EXIT BETTY
unpleasant to me. We got along very nicely,
although I never had much to do with him. There
wasn’t much to him.
“ The other brother, Herbert, was handsome like
his mother, only dark, with black curly hair, black
wicked eyes, and a big, loose, cruel mouth. His
mother just idolized him, and he knew it. He could
make her do anything on earth. He used to force
Bessemer into doing wrong things, too, things that
he was afraid to do himself, because he knew father
would not be so hard on Bessemer as on him. For
father had taken a great dislike to Herbert, and it
was no wonder. He seemed to have no idea at all
that he was not owner of the house. He took any-
thing he pleased for his own use, even father’s most
sacred possessions, and broke them in a fit of anger,
too, sometimes, without ever saying he was sorry.
He talked very disrespectfully of father and to him,
and acted so to the servants that they gave notice
and left. Every few days there would be a terrible
time over something Herbert had done. Once I re-
member he went to the safe and got some money out
thafl belonged to father and went off and spent it in
some dreadful way that made father very angry. Of
course I was still only a little girl, and I did not know
all that went on. Father was very careful that I


EXIT BETTY 177
should not know. He guarded me more than ever,
but he always looked sad when he came to kiss
me good-night.
“ Herbert took especial delight in tormenting
me,” she went on with a sad far-away look in her
eyes as if she were recalling unpleasant memories.
She did not see the set look on Reyburn’s face nor
notice his low exclamation of anger. She went
steadily on: “ He found out that I did not like June-
bugs, and once he caught hundreds of them and
locked me into a room with them with all the lights
turned on. I was almost frightened t'o death, but it
cured me of being afraid of June-bugs.” A little
smile trembled out on Betty’s lips. “ Just because
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him
hear me scream.” She finished. “ Then he caught a
snake and put it in my room, and he put a lot of
burdocks in my hat so they would get in my hair.
Foolish things those were, of course, but he was a
constant nightmare to me. Sometimes he would tie
a wire across the passages in the upper hall where I
had to pass to my room, and when I fell my hands
went down against a lot of slimy toads in the dark,
for he always somehow managed to have the light go
out just as I fell. There were hundreds of things
like that, but I needn’t multiply them. That’s the
kind of boy he was. And because he discovered that
12


EXIT BETTY 179
because I was afraid of Herbert. As I grew older
I used to have an awful horror of him. But finally
one vacation father a.nd mother both came up and
said they wanted me at home. My stepmother went
to my room with me and told me I needn’t be afraid
of Herbert any more, that he was quite grown up and
changed and would be good to me, and that it would
please my father to have all his family together hap~
pily again. I believed her and I told father I would
like to go. He looked very happy, and so I went
home. Herbert had been away at school himself
most of the time, and so had Bessemer, although they
had been in trouble a good many times, so the ser-
vants told me, and had to change to new schools.
They were both away when I got home. I had
a very happy time for three Weeks, only that I never
saw father alone once. My stepmother was always
there. But she was kind and I tried not to mind.
Then all of a sudden one night I woke up and heard
voices, and I knew that the boys were back from
the camp to which they had been sent. I didn’t sleep
much the rest of the night, but in the" morning I made
up my mind that it was only a little while before I
could go back to school, and I would be nice to the
boys and maybe they wouldn’t trouble me.
“ I found that it was quite true that Herbert had
grown up and changed. He didn’t want to torment


180 EXIT BETTY
me any more, he wanted to make love to me, and I
was only a child yet. I wasn’t quite fifteen. It filled
me with horror, and after he had caught me in the
dark-he always loved to get people in the dark-
and tried to kiss me, I asked father to let me go
back to school at once. I can remember how sad he
looked at me as if I had cut him to the heart when
I asked him.”
During this part of the tale Reyburn sat with
stern countenance, his fingers clenched around the
arms of the chair in which he sat, but he held himself
quiet and listened with compressed lips, watching
every expression that flitted across the sweet
pale face.
“ That was the last time I was at home with my
father,” she said, trying to control her quivering
lips. “ He took me back to school, and he came three
times to see me, though not so often as before. The
last time he said beautiful things to me about trying
to live a right life and being kind to those about me,
and he asked me to forgive him if he had ever done
anything to hurt me in any way. Of course I said he
hadn’t. And then he said he hoped I wouldn’t feel
too hard at him for marrying again and bringing
those boys into my life. I told him it was all
right, that some day they would grow up and go
away and he and I would live together again! And


CHAPTER XIV
“ IT was not until last spring that she sent for me
to come home,” went on Betty, “ and was very effu-
sive about how much she needed me and how she
was so much better, and meant to be a real mother
to me now, helping me see the world and have a
good time. She took me from one summer resort
to another. Of course it was pleasant after having
been shut up in school all those years, but she kept me
close with her all the time, and I met only the people
she chose to have me meet. All the time she kept
talking about ‘ dear Herbert ’ and telling how won-
derful he was and how he had grown to be ‘ such a
dear boy.’ Finally he arrived and began the very
first evening he was with us to coax me to marry him.
At first he was very courteous and waited upon
me whenever I stirred, and I almost thought his
mother was right about his being changed. But when
I told him that I did not love him and could not ever
marry him I caught a look on his face like an angry
snarl, and I heard him tell his mother I was a crazy
little fool, and that he would break my neck for me
after he got me good and married. Then his mother
182


EXIT BETTY 183
began to come to me and cry and tell me how dear
Herbert was almost heart-broken, that he would
never lift up his head again, and that I would send
him to ruin. It was simply awful, and I didn’t know
how to endure it. I began to wonder where I could
go. Of course I had never been brought up to do
anything, so I could not very well expect to go out
into the world and make my living.”
“Didn’t you have any money at all?” inter-
rupted Reyburn suddenly.
“ Oh, yes,” she said, looking up as if she had just
remembered his presence. “ I had always plenty of
spending money, but if I went away where they
couldn’t find me, why, of course, I would have to
give that up.”
“ Why, where did your money come from? Was
it an allowance from your stepmother, or did your
father leave it to you, or what? ”
_ “ I’m not just sure,” said Betty, with troubled
brow. “ I never really knew much about the money
affairs. ‘ When I asked, they always put me off and
said that I was too young to be bothered with busi-
ness yet, I would be told all about it when I came
of age. My stepmother harped a great deal on keep-
ing me young as long as possible. She said it was
my father’s wish that I should be relieved of all


184 EXIT BETTY
care until I came of age. But there were some trus-
tees in Boston. I know that, because I had to write
to them, about once or twice a year. My stepmother
was most particular about that. I think they were old
friends of my own mother, though I don’t know
when I learned that. Father told me once that
mother had left me enough‘ to keep me comfortably
even without what he would leave me, so I’m sure
I shall have enough to repay you if I could once
get it.”
“ Don’t worry about me! ” he exclaimed. “ It
seems so terrible for you to have been alone in a
situation like that! Wasn’t there any one you could
appeal to for help? ”
“ No, not any one whom I thought it would be
right to tell. You see, in a way it was my father’s
honor. She was his wife, and I’m sure he loved her
—at least at first—and she really was very good to
me, except when it was a question of her son.”
“ I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there!” he
said sternly. “ I think she was a clever actress. But
excuse me. Go on, please.”
“At last, when things had got so bad that I thought
I must run away somewhere, my stepmother came
into my room one morning and locked the door. She
had been weeping, and she looked very sweet and piti-


EXIT BETTY 185
ful. She said she had something to tell me. She
had tried not to have to do! it, for she was afraid it
would grieve me and might make me have hard
feelings against my father. I told her that was inii
possible. Then she told me that my father on his
deathbed had called her to him and told her that
it was his wish that I should marry one of her sons,
and he wanted her to tell me. He felt that he had
wronged them by hating them for my sake and he
felt that I could make it all right by marrying one of
them. My stepmother said that when she saw how
infatuated dear Herbert was with me she hoped that
she would be spared having to tell me, but now that I
was treating him so she felt bound to deliver the
message. Then she handed me a paper which said
virtually the same thing which she had told me,
and was signed by my father in his own
handwriting.”
“ Was the paper written or printed? ” inter-
rupted Reyburn.
“ I think it was typewritten, but the signature
was papa’s. There could be no mistake about that,
and he wouldn’t have signed something he didn’t
mean.” Betty sighed as if it were a subject she had
worn into her heart by much sorrowful thought.
“ It might be quite possible for him to have done


isa EXIT BE'I'l‘Y}’
that under influence or delirium, or when he was
too sick to realize.”
“ Oh, do you think so? ” Betty caught at the hope.
It seems so awful to go against papa’s last request.”
“ There is nothing awful but the idea of your
being tied to that—beast! ” said Reybur n with unex-
pected fervor. Betty looked at him gratefully and
went on :
“ I was simply appalled. I couldn’t think, and I
made my stepmother go away and leave me for a;
little while, but things got blacker and blacker and
I thought I was going crazy. I couldn’t marry Her-
bert even to please my father. The next day
Bessemer arrived. He had been worrying his mother
a lot about money, and when he arrived I couldn’t
help hearingIVwhat they said to him. They charged
him with all sort of dreadful things. They called
him a disgrace, and threatened to let him be arrested,
and a great many more such things. Finally his
mother ended up by telling him she never had loved
him and that if he made any more trouble about
money she would cut him off without a cent. I was
sitting upstairs in my room with my windows open,
and all their IVt’alk floated right up to me. It made
me feel sick, and yet .|. felt sorry for Bessemer, for
lately whenever he had been around he had been
(8


190 EXIT BETTY
“ My heart just stood still. With the paper in
my hand I rushed up to my stepmother’ s room and
demanded to know what that meant. She smiled
and said she was so sorry I had been annoyed that
way, that that was a mistake, the invitations had
come wrongly engraved and she had had to send
them back and have them done over again. She
was afraid I might be superstitious about it, so she
hadn’t told me. She was very gentle and sweet and
tried to soothe me, and called me ‘ Betty,’ the name
my father always had for me, and at last I went back
to my room feeling quite comfortable. She had said
she always felt troubled for poor Bessemer, that no-
body could love him right, he was so homely, and
now I was going to make everything right by marry-
ing him. She was going to try to forget what I
had done to poor dear Herbert, and just be happy
about Bessemer. She talked so nicely that I kissed
her, a thing I hadn’t done in years, not since she was
first married to father. But somehow the shock of
seeing Herbert’s name on the invitation stayed with
me, and I began to feel gloomier about it all and
to wonder if perhaps I had done right. V . The last
day I was terribly depressed and when I got to the
church that night it suddenly came to me that per-
haps after all I was not going to be free at all as I


EXIT BETTY 191
had hoped, but was just tying myself up to them all
for life. I was thinking that as I walked up the
aisle, and my throat had a big lump in it the Way it
always does when I am frightened, and then I looked
up hoping a glimpse of poor Bessemefis face, would
steady me and he wasn’t there at all! And right
over me, waiting beside the minister, to marry me
stood H erbert! My knees‘ just gave way under me,
and everything got black so I couldn’t go on another
step, nor even stand up. I had to drop. I wasn’t
unconscious as you all thought—I heard everything
that went on, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
“ After they had carried me into the other room
and given me things to drink, and I could get my
breath again I saw it all clearly. Herbert hadn’t
given up at all. He meant to marry me anyway. He
had had the invitations printed with his name on
purpose and they probably hadn’t been changed at
all. Everybody in that great church out there was
expecting me to marry Herbert Hutton, and I was
not going to do it! I didn’t quite know how I was
going to stop it, but I knew I had to! You see I was
brought up to think a great deal about what people
would think of me if I did anything out of the
usual, and it seemed to me I had disgraced myself
forever by dropping down in the aisle. I knew


192 EXIT BETTY
Herbert well enough to be sure he would carry that
wedding through now if he had to hold me up in
his arms till the ceremony was over, and I was
desperate. I would have given everything I had in
the world if the floor had opened and swal-
lowed me up then, but of course I knew wild thoughts
like that wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I just shut
my eyes and tried to think of a way; and then I
asked them all to go out a minute and let me be quiet.
The doctor who had come out of the church told
them to go. I shall always bless that man, whoever
he was! Then when they were gone I opened a door
that had a key in it, and I locked it behind me and
ran away down some stairs and out a passage that led
to the street. That girl, Jane Carson, was passing
and she put her own coat on me and took me to her
room and sent me here. Oh, it’s been so good to get
here! Do you think they can take me away against
my will ”
“ Certainly not!” said the young man. “ Not
without some foul play, but I don’t intend to give
them any chance for that. By the way, when do you
come of age?”
“ In three Weeks,” said Betty, looking troubled.
"“ Why, would I be safe after I was of age? ”
“ You certainly would not be under their guar-


EXIT BETTY 193
dianship any longer,” said the young lawyer, “ and
they would have no right to control your actions, un-
less of course you were incapacitated somehow and
unfit to manage your own affairs.”
Betty looked troubled.
“ I’ve thought sometimes, ever since I saw that
paper in which they hinted that I was temporarily
insane, that they might try to shut me up in an insane
asylum. Herbert wouldn’t stop at anything. Could
he do that? ”
(C
They would have to get a doctor to swear that
you were mentally unsound,” said Reyburn, looking
troubled. “ Does he really love you, do you think
or does he only want to get you in his power for
some reason? ”
“ It is more like that,” said Betty sorrowfully,
“ he couldn’t really love anybody but himself.”
“ Well, don’t you worry. I’m going at the case
at once, and I’ll put those people where they’ll have
to walk a chalk line before many hours are over. The
first thing I must do is to see those trustees of yours.
“ Can you give me the names and addresses?”
He got out his fountain pen, and Betty told him
all he wanted to know, that is, all she knew herself,
and then suddenly it was train time and he hurried
away. On the steps he paused and said in a low tone:
18


19! EXIT BETTY
“ Are you perfectly comfortable with these peo-
ple for a few days until I can get you better accom-
modations where you will be safe? ”
“ Entirely,” said Betty eagerly. “ I wouldn’t
want to go elsewhere.”
“ But it must be very hard for one like you to be
thrown constantly with illiterate, uncultured people.”
Betty smiled dreamily:
“ I don’t think they are exactly uncultured,” she
said slowly. “ They—well, you see, they make a
friend of God, and somehow I think that makes a
difference. Don’t you think it would? ”
“ I should think it would,” said Warren Reyburn
reverently with a light in his eyes. “ I think, perhaps,
if you don’t mind my saying it, that you, too, have
been making a friend of God.”
“ I’ve been trying to,” said Betty softly, with a
shy glow on her face that he remembered all the way
back to the city.



196 EXIT BETTY
That she was overstepping her privileges as a
servant in the house went without saying, but she
silenced her Scotch conscience, which until this
period of her existence had always kept her strictly
from meddling with other people’s affairs, by de-
claring over and over again to herself that she was
doing perfectly right because she was doing it for
the sake of “that poor wee thing that was being
cheated of her rights.”
Several weeks had passed since her sudden re-
establishment in the family, and the reports of Betty,
so hastily readjusted and refurbished to harmonize
with the newspaper reports, had not been any more
satisfying. Mrs. Stanhope had explained to the
servants the day after the excitement that Miss
Betty had become temporarily deranged, and later
that she had escaped from the private hospital where
she had been taken, and they were doing all in their
power to find her. In reply to Candace’s gimlet-like
questions she had given the name of a hospital where
she said Betty had been taken at first, and every-
thing seemed altogether plausible. But as the days
went by and the horror of her absence grew into the
soul of the lonely woman whose care Betty had been
for years, Candace became more and more restive
and suspicious. It was these suspicians which sent


EXIT BETTY 197
her on her investigations, and made her uncannily
Wise to pry open secret locks and cover all trace of her
absence after she had gleaned what knowledge
she sought.
On this particular evening her excitement was
due to having come across some correspondence
bearing the signature of a man to whom a certain
letter had been addressed, which had been entrusted
to her charge by Betty’s dying father and taken from
her by his wife. For years she had been worried
about that, and yet she had no absolute reason to
doubt that the madam had not sent it to its destina-
tion, except as she knew its contents and read Mrs.
Stanhope’s character beneath the excellent camou-
flage. But to-night, even the briefest glance through
the bundle of letters showed plainly that those men
in Boston never knew the master’s wishes, or at least,
if they knew them, they were utterly disregard-
ing them.
Aroused on one point, her suspicions began to
extend further.. Where was Betty? Did her step-
mother know, and was she somewhere suffering,
alone, perhaps being neglected because she had not
done as they wanted her to do? If the stepmother
was capable of destroying a letter, was she perhaps
not also capable of putting Betty out of the way?


EXIT BETTY 199
must do it. She knew perfectly the address that
had been on that letter. She had written it down
carefully from memory as soon as it had been taken
away from her. She must go to Boston and find that
man to whom it had been Written, and discover
whether he had ever received it. But she could not
go until she found out certainly whether or not Betty
had ever really escaped from the hospital. Who
knew but that she was shut up there‘yetfand the
madam telling this tale all about and advertising with
a five thousand dollar reward! In the movies, too!
Such a disgrace on the family! How the master
would have writhed at the publicity of his beloved
daughter—“ poor wee thing!”
Candace turned from the window with her lips
set, and tiptoing to the door, listened. Yes, it was
Aileen who was coming lightly up the stairs, singing
in a low tone. It was Aileen’s evening out. That
meant that Marie would be more than usually active
on the upper floor. She must manage it before
'Aileen left and Marie was called upstairs, or there
would be no opportunity to get away without Marie
seeing her.
Hastily she gathered her silk dress, her cloak and
her apoplectic hat into a bundle with her purse and
her gloves, and tied them into an old apron, with the


Q02 EXIT BETTY
Canny Candace did not go at once to the office
of the brothers, James and George McIntyre, though
she looked them up in the telephone book the very
first thing when the train arrived in Boston even
before she had had a bite to eat, and her cup of tea
which meant more to her than the “bite.” She
reasoned that they would be busy in the early hours
and not be able to give her their undivided attention.
She had not lived out all her life for nothing. She
knew the ways of the world, and she had very
strict ideas about the best ways of doing everything.
So it happened that when she was at last shown
into the oifice of the McIntyres, Warren Reybur
n
who had traveled to Boston on the sleeper of the
same train that she had taken the night before, was
just arising from an earnest oonference with the
two men. With her first glance, as the three emerged
from the inner office, Candace saw that the two elder
gentlemen were much disturbed and it flitted through
her mind that she had come at an inopportune mo-
ment. Then her quick eye took in the younger man
and her little alert head cocked to one side with a
questioning attitude. Where had she seen him be-
fore? Candace had the kind of a mind that kept
people and events card-indexed even to the minutest
detail, and it didn’t take many seconds for her to


204 EXIT BETTY
Intyre thus set at liberty, turned questioningly to-
ward the stranger, who was not slow in getting to
her feet and coming forward.
“ You will maybe be Mr. James McIntyre? ” she
asked, lifting her sea-blue eyes set in her apple-red
face, and fixing her firm little lips in dignity. Can-
dace was a servant and knew her place, but she felt
the importance of her mission, and meant to have
no disrespect done to it.
“ I am Mr. George McIntyre,” the gentleman
replied, and, indicating the man at the door, “ Mr.
James McIntyre will be at liberty in a moment, but
perhaps I will do as well? ”
Candace cocked a glance toward the elderly back
at the door; and then returned her look to
Mr. George:
“ You’ll maybe be knowing Mr. Charles Stan-
hope? ” she propounded, as if she were giving
him a riddle, and her blue eyes looked him through
and through:
“ Oh, surely, surely! He was a very close friend!
You—knew him? ”
“ I was Miss Betty’ s nurse who cooked the grid-
dle cakes for you the morning after the funera "

l
she said, and waited with breathless dignity to see
how he would take it.


EXIT BETTY 205
“ Oh! Is that so! ” He beamed on her kindly.
“ Yes, yes, I remember those cakes. They were de-
licious! And what can I do for you? Just sit
down. Why, bless me, I don’t know but that your
coming may be very opportune! Can you tell me
anything of Miss Betty? ”
Candace pressed her lips together with a knowing
smile as much as to say she might tell volumes if it
were wise, and she cast a glance at the other brother
who was shaking hands now with his visitor and
promising to meet him a little later:
“ Yon man’ll be knowing a bit, too, I’ll be think-
ing,” she hazarded nodding toward Reyburn as he
left. “ He was at the wedding, I’m most sure———! ”
The elder McIntyre gave her a quick glance and
signalled to his brother to come near:
“ This is Miss Stanhope’s nurse, the one who
cooked breakfast for us at the time of the
funeral,” he said, and to Candace, “ This is
Mr. James McIntyre.”
Candace fixed him with another of her inquisi-
tive little glances:
“ I’ve some bit papers put by that I thought ye
might like to see,” she said with a cautious air. “ I’ve
kept them fer long because I thought they might be
wanted sometime, yet I’ve never dared bring them


206 EXIT BE'I'I‘Y
to your notice before lest I would be considered
meddlin’, and indeed I wasn’t sure but you had them
already. Will you please to look over them papers
and see if you’ve ever seen them before? ” She drew
forth an envelope from her bag and handed it to
them. “ It’s a bit letter that Mr. Sta.nhope wrote the
day he was dyin’ an’ then copied and give to me to
mail, and his lady took it away, sayin’ she would
attend to it. What I want to know is, did ye ever
get the letter? If ye did it’s all right and none of
my business further, an’ I’ll go on my way back home
again and think no more about it; but if ye didn’t
then there it is, an’ you ought to see it, that’s sure! ”
The two men drew eagerly together and studied
the trembling lines:
“ It’s his writing all right,” murmured one,
under his breath, and the brother nodded gravely:
“ You say that this was the original of a letter
that was given to you to mail to us? ”
Candace nodded.
“ It’s what he wrote first, and got ink on it, an’
then wrote it over. I can’t say what changes he
made, as I didn’t read it, but this he gave to me to
burn, and before I gets it burned my lady comm in
and takes the letter from me while he was sleepin’;
and so I hid the bit papers, thinkin’ they might


CHAPTER XVI
THE mysterious disappearance of Candace from
the Stanhope house caused nothing short of a panic.
Herbert and his mother held hourly wrangles,
and frantically tried one thing and then another.
Day after day the responses came in from the adver-
tisements they had caused to be put forth. Everyone
was hot-foot for the reward, but so far little of
encouragement had been brought out. More and
more the young man was fixing his mind on the idea
that Candace had something to do with Betty’s dis-
appearance, so he was leaving no stone unturned
to find the nurse as well as the girl. To this end
he insisted on seeing personally and cross-examining
every person who came claiming to have a clue to
the lost girl.
That morning, at about the same hour when Can-
dace walked into the office of the McIntyre Brothers
in Boston, James, the butler, much against his dig-
nity, was ushering a curious person into the presence
of the son of the house. James showed by every line
of his noble figure that he considered this duty be-
neath his dignity, and that it was only because the
14 209


210 EXIT BETTY
occasion was unusual that he tolerated it for a mo-
ment, but the man who ambled observantly behind
him, stretching his neck to see everything that was to
be seen in this part of the great house, that he might
tell about it at the fire-house, failed to get the effect.
He was wondering why in thunder such rich' people
as these seemed to be, couldn’t afford carpets big
enough to cover their whole floors, instead of just
having skimpy little bits of pieces dropped around
here and there, that made you liable to skid all over
the place if you stepped on one of them biasly.
Herbert Hutton lifted his head and watched
Abijah Gage slouch into the room. He measured
him keenly and remained silent while Abijah opened
up. There had been many other applicants for that
reward that day, with stories cunningly woven, and
facts, substantiated by witnesses, in one case a whole
family brought along to swear to the fabrication;
but as yet Herbert had not found a promising clue
to his missing bride, and the time was going by.
In a‘ few days it would be too late, and his undisci-
plined spirit raged within him. It was not only his
bride he wanted, it was her fortune, which was worth
any trouble he might take; and every day, every
hour, every minute now, it was slipping, slipping,
slipping from his eager grasp.


212 EXIT BETTY
“ You needn’t say anybody! I’ll call up again,”
growled the voice, and the man hung up.
Jimmie sat for a long time in blissful reverie.
“ He’s getting there! ” he whispered to himself.
“ He’ll get the big cases yet, and I can keep my first
place. I must see Jane to-night and tell her.”
Meanwhile, back at Tinsdale improvements had
been going on at the Carsons. Bob, always handy
with tools, had been putting in a tank over the bath-
tub. They had one at the house on the hill, only it
was run by a windmill. Bob had a friend who was
a plumber’s son, and from him had obtained some
lengths of second-hand water-pipe and an old faucet.
He had conceived the idea of a tank on the roof, and
his first plan had been only a rainwater tank, but
gradually as his vision widened he included a force
pump in the outfit of desires He hung around the
plumber’s until they unearthed an old force pump
somewhat out of repair, and for a few days’ assist-
ing the plumber Bob acquired it, together with after-
hour help to put it into operation. The next object
was a tank, which seemed at first to represent the
impossible; but the grocer at last offered a sugges-
tion in the shape of several large empty hogsheads
whichhe readily accepted at the price of four Satur-
day’s work in the store.


EXIT BETTY 213
All Bob’s extra time was put into these improve-
ments, and he was as excited every night when it
grew dark and he was forced to come to supper
because he couldn’t see any longer to work, as if he
had been building an airship.
The day the hogsheads were marshaled and con-
nected and the force prump sent its first stream into
them was a great occasion. The family assembled in
the yard, with Elise Hathaway, who had been
allowed to come over for a few minutes with Betty.
Bob and his pltunber friend pumped, and Emily
climbed to the attic window, which overlooked the
row of hogsheads, ranged so that the water would
flow from one to the other, and acted as pilot to the
new enterprise. As the first stream from the force
pump, which Bob had lavishly painted red, crept
its way up the pipes and began to wet the bottom of
the first and highest hogshead Emily gave a little
squeal of delight and shouted “ It’s come! It’s come!
The water’s come! ” and the family below fairly held
their breath with the wonder of it Not that such a
thing could be, but that their own freckled, grinning
Bob should have been able to achieve it.
There was an elaborate system of tin conductors
which conveyed the waste water from the bathtub
out through a hole in the wall of the little laundry


216 EXIT BETTY
something like that. I’m real glad there’s somebody
goin’ to look into your afiairs an’ fix things right
for you. I knew you was restless an’ worried. Now
it’ll get all straightened out. He’s got a nice face.
I trusted him first off. He’s a church member, an’
that’s somethin’. They ain’t all spiritual, but they’re
mostly clean an’ just an’ kindly, when they’re any-
thin’ at all but just plain hypocrites, which, thank
the Lord, there ain’t so many as some would have us
believe. Now wash your face, dearie, an’ run back
to your place so you can come home early, for we’re
goin’ to have the old hen with dumplin’s for supper
to celebrate.”
That was one charming thing about that house-
hold: they celebrated every blessed little trifle that
came into their lives, so that living with them was
like a procession of beautiful thanksgivings.
It was while Betty was eating the gala “ hen,”
delicious in its festive gravy and dumplings, that she
looked off across the little dining-room to the dark
window with its twinkling village lights in the dis-
tance and thought of the stranger. A dark fear
flashed across her sweet face and sparkled in the
depths of her eyes for just an instant. Was it per-
haps the distant bay of the hounds on her trail, com-
ing nearer every moment? Then she remembered
the heavenly Father and her new-found faith, and


218 EXIT BETTY
not even himself if he could help it, since the day
his mother died and ceased to force him to carry
in wood and water for her at the end of a hickory
switch. He glanced uneasily round with a slight
cackle of dismay as he arrived in the unaccustomed
plush surroundings and tried to find some place to
dump his load. But the well-groomed Herbert strode
down the long aisle unnoticing and took possession
of the section he had secured as if he owned the road.
“ You can sit there! ” he ordered Bi with a
condescending motion, dropping into his own seat
and opening a newspaper.
Bi sat down on the edge of the seat, and held on
to the arm in a gingerly way as if he were afraid
to trust himself to anything so different. He looked
furtively up and down the car, eyed the porter, who
ignored him contemptuously and finally came back
and demanded his sleeper ticket with a lordliness
that Bi did not feel he could take from a negro. But
somehow the ticket got tangled in his pocket, and Bi
had a hard time finding it, which deepened his indig-
nation at the porter.
“ I ain’t takin’ no sass from no one. My seat’s
paid fer all right,” he said distinctly for the enlight-
cnment of the other passengers, and Herbert Hutton
reached out a discreet arm and dropped something in


EXI'I‘ BETTY 219
the porter’s hand which sent him on his way and
left Bi snorting audibly after him.
“ You’d better shut up! ” growled the dictator to
Bi. “ We don’t want to be conspicuous, you know.
If you can’t hold your tongue and act as if you had
ever traveled before, I’ll get off this train at the next
station and you can whistle for your reward. Do
you understand?” V
Bi dropped his toothless lower jaw a trifle and
his little eyes grew narrow. This was no way to
manage affable Bi. He loved a good visit, and he had
counted on one all the way to Tinsdale. He had no
idea of sitting silent.
“ I understand,” he drawled, “ an’ I’ll be gormed
ef I’ll agree. I ain’t told you yet where we get off,
an’ I don’t have to ef I don’t wantta. Ef you can’t
treat me like a gen’l’man you know where you can
get ofi, an’ I ain’t havin’ to state it.”
Herbert Hutton drew his arrogant brows in a
frown of annoyance, and whirled around to placate
his guide:
“ Now see here, you old popinjay, what’s got
into you?”
“ No, sir, I ain’t nobody’ s papa,” babbled Bi,
seeing he had scored a point. “ I have enough to do
to support myself without any family.”


220 EXIT BETTY
“ That’s all right, have it your own way, only
shut up or we’ll have somebody listening. Have a
cigar. Take two. But you can’t smoke ’em in here,
you’l1 have to go to the smoking-room. Wait! I’1l
see if we can get the drawing-room.”
The porter appeared and the change was effected,
to the great disapointment of Bi, who kept continu-
ally poking his head out to get a glimpse of the fine
ladies. I He would much have preferred staying out
in the main car and getting acquainted with people.
His cunning had departed with the need. He had
put things in the hands of this surly companion, and
now he meant to have a good time and something to
tell the gang about when he got home.
About midnight the train drew into a station and
Herbert Hutton roused himself and looked out of
the window. Bi, whose curming had returned, fol-
lowed his example. Suddenly he leaned forward
excitedly and tapped the glass with a long finger:
“ That’s him! That’s the guy,” he whispered ex-
citedly as another train drew in and passengers
began to hurry down the platform and across to the
waiting sleeper.
“ Are you sure?’
“ Sartin! ”
“ You mean the one with the coat over his arm,


’ EXIT BETTY 225
“ We could? ” said Hutton. “ You sure? No
chances, mind you! ”
“ Do it easy. Those guys are asleep. They
won’t get to the Junction ’fore ten o’clock, mebbe
later, an’ they can’t possibly get to our place
’fore ’leven.”
“Lead the way!” ordered Hutton, cramming
himself into his coat and hat.
“ Better slide down on the other side,” whis-
pered Bi as they reached the platform. “ We kin
go back round. the train an’ nobody’ll notice.”
As if they were only come out to see what was the
matter they idled along the length of the train
around out of sight, slid down the bank, took a short
cut across a meadow to a road, and were soon well on
their way to Fox Glove in the early oool of the spring
morning, a strangely mated couple bent on mischief.
Back on the cinder track the express waited,
drmmily indifferent, with a flagman ahead and be-
hind to guard its safety, and while men slept the
enemy took wings and flew down the white morning
road to Tinsdale, but no one ra.n ahead with a little
red flag to the gray cottage where slept Betty, to
warn her, though perchance an angel with a flaming
sword stood invisibly to guard the way.
‘IR


CHAPTER XVII .
Boa had just finished feeding the chickens when
the automobile drew up at the door, and he hurried
around the house to see who it might be. He was
rather looking for the return of that nice lawyer
again. He felt the family expected him some time
soon. Perhaps he would be to breakfast and mother
would want some fresh eggs.
They had dropped Bi at the edge of the village
and there were only Hutton and the driver who had
brought them. Bi had no mind to get mixed up in
this affair too openly. He valued his standing in his
home town, and did not wish to lose it. He had an
instinct that what he was doing might make him
unpopular if it became known. Besides, he had an-
other ax to grind.
Bob did not like the looks of the strange dark
man who got’ out of the car and came into the yard
with the air of a thrashing machine bolting into what-
ever came in his way. He stood sturdily and waited
until he was asked who lived there, and admitted with
a stingy “ yes ” that it was Mrs. Carson’s house. A
thundering knock on the front door followed, and
no


228 EXIT BETTY
it isn’t true! Oh, mother, don’t let him take me! ”
Mrs. Carson pushed Betty behind her, the knife
still in her other hand, and answered with dignity:
“ You’ve made a big mistake, Mr. Herbert
Hutton; this isn’t your wife at all. I know all
about you.”
Hutton put on a look of instant suavity.
“ Oh, of course, madam, she has told you that,
but I’m sorry to have to tell you that she is not
in her right mind. She made her escape from the
insane asylum.”
“ Oh, rats! ” shouted Bob, and vanished out the
kitchen door, slamming it behind him.
Emily, frightened and white, stood just outside,
and he nearly knocked her over in his flight. He
pulled her along with him, whispering in her
ear excitedly:
“You beat it down to the fire gong and hit it
for all you’re worth! Quick! ”
Emily gave him one frightened look and sprang
to action. Her little feet sped down the path to
the lot where hung the big fire gong, like two wild
rabbits running for their life, and in a moment more
the loud whang of alarm rang through the little town,
arousing the “ gang” and greatly disconcerting Bi,
who was craning his neck at the station and watching


280 EXIT BE'I'1‘Y
hind a loud angry tone. He had about sized up Ma.
and decided to use force.
It was a tense moment when Bob, his hasty
arrangements made, silently swung open the laundry
door in full range of the uninvited guests and waited
for the psychological moment. Mrs. Carson had
dropped her knife and seized the smoking hot frying-
pan of bacon as a weapon. She was oool and col-
lected, but one could see in her eyes the little devil
of battle that sometimes sat in Bob’s eyes as she
swung the frying-pan back for a blow. Suddenly
out flashed a cold steel eye, menacing, unanswerable,
looking straight into her own.
At that instant, unannounced and unobserved,
through the laundry door lumbered a long ugly tin
conductor pipe, and the deluge began. Straight into
the eyes of the would-be husband it gushed, battering
swashingly down on the cocked revolver, sending it
harmlessly to the floor, where it added to the con-
fusion by going off with a loud report, and sending
the chauffeur to the shelter of the parlor. Bob never
knew how near he came to killing some one by his
hasty service, and Ma never had the heart to suggest
it. Instead she acted promptly and secured the
weapon before the enemy had time to recover from
his shock.


EXIT BE'1'I‘Y 283
and fixing the old fellow with a muscular young
shake that made his toothless jaws chatter. “ How
long ago did he go? What kind of a looking man
was he? ”
“ Lemme go! ” whined Bi, playing to make time,
one cunning eye down the road. “ I ain’t as young
as I used to be, an’ I can’t stand gettin’ excited. I
got a rig here a purpose, an’ I’ll take you all right
down, an’ then ef he’s gone, an’ I s’pose he must be,
’cause your train was late, why, we’ll foller.”
“ Well, quick, then! ” said Reyburn, climbing
into the shackley spring wagon that Bi indicated, the
only vehicle in view. The two trustees climbed
stiffly and uneertainly into the back seat as if they
felt they were risking their lives, and Bi lumbered
rheumatically into the driver’s place and took up the
lines. It appeared that the only living thing in Tins-*
dale that wasn’t awake and keen to go to the fire was
that horse, and Bi had to do quite a little urging
with the stump of an old whip. So, reluctantly, they
joined the procession toward the Carson house.
As the stream from the hogshead gurgled smaller,
and the victim writhed out of its reach and began to
get his bearings, suddenly the outside kitchen door
burst open and a crew of rubber-coated citizens
sprang in, preceded by a generous stream of chemi-
cals which an ardent young member of the company
M-L


284 EXIT BETTY
set free indiscriminately in his excitement. It struck
the right man squarely in the middle and sent him
sprawling on the floor.
Bob dropped the conductor pipe in exhausted
relief and flew to the scene of action. It had been
fearful to be held from more active service so long.
Emily, outside, could be seen dancing up and down
excitedly and directing the procession, with fright-
ened shouts, “ In there! In the kitchen! Quick! ”
as the neighbors and townsmen crowded in and filled
the little kitchen demanding to know where the
fire was.
Mrs. Carson with dignity stepped forward to
explain:
“ There ain’t any fire, friends, an’ I don’t know
how you all come to get here, but I reckon the Lord
sent you You couldn’t a-oome at a better moment.
We certainly was in some trouble, an’ I’1l be obliged
to you all if you’ll just fasten that man up so’t he
can’t do any more harm. He came walkin’ in here
tryin’ to take away a member of my family by force,
an’ he pointed this at me!”
She lifted the incriminating weapon high where
they could all see.
Herbert Hutton, struggling to his feet in the
crowd, began to understand that this was no place
for him, and looked about for an exit, but none pre-
.__~_*__i-


_EX1TBE'1'1‘Y 235
sented itself. The chauffeur had vanished and was
trying to make out what had happened to his car.
Hutton, brought to bay, turned on the crowd like
a snarling animal, although the effect was slightly
spoiled by his drabbled appearance, and roared
out insolently:
“The woman doesn’t know what she’s talking
about, men ; she’s only frightened. I came here after
my wife, and I intend to take her away with me!
She escaped from an insane asylum some time ago,
and we’ve been looking for her ever since. This
woman is doing a very foolish and useless thing
in resisting me, for the law can take hold of
her, of course.”
The crowd wavered and looked uncertainly at
Mrs. Carson and at Betty cowering horrified behind
her, and Hutton saw his advantage:
“ Men,” he went on, “ there is one of your own
townsmen who knows me and can vouch for me.
A Mr. Gage. Abijah Gage. If you will just look
him up—he was down at the station a few minutes
ago. He knows that all I am saying is true! ”
A low sound like a rumble went over the little
audience and they seemed to bunch together and
look at one another while some kind of an under-
standing traveled from eye to eye. An articulate syl-
lable, “Bi!” breathed in astonishment, and the:


EXIT BE'1‘TY £k . 239
cise the privilege of a daughter of the house for the
rest of her natural life.
Bi Gage was worried. He was still trying to
get something out of the estate for his part in the
exercises, and he vibrated between Tinsdale and
Warren Reyburn’s office working up his ease. The
five-thousand-dollar reward was as yet unpaid, and
the papers he held didn’t seem to impress the func-
tionaries nearly so much as he had expected. It
began to look as though Bi had missed his chances
in life once more, and when he took his old scat in the
fire-house and smoked, he said very little. Popular
Opinion was still crouching with her eye in his
direction and it behooved him to walk cautiously
and do nothing to offend. So while he smoked he
cogitated in his cunning little brain, and hatched
out a plan by which he might get in with the heiress
later, perhaps, when things had quieted down a little
and she had her money.
Betty received a pitiful letter from her step-
mother, trying to explain away her part in the affair
and professing to be so relieved at the news that
Betty was still alive and well that she cared nothing
about anything else, not even the fact that poor dear
Herbert was landed in jail, or that the fortune which
she had schemed so long to keep in her own power


940 EXIT BETTY
was wrested from her so ignominiously. She begged
Betty to come back to their home and “ be happy
again together.”
But Betty was so happy where she was that she
could afiord to be generous and try to forget her
wrongs. She wrote a decent little note gently but
firmly declining to come “ home ” ever again, making
it quite plain that she was no longer deceived by
honeyed phrases, and closing with a request that
if in future any communication might be neces-
sary it should be made through her lawyer, Mr.
Warren Reyburn.
This same Warren Reyburn had returned to his
city oliice in a very much exalted state of mind.
He could not get away from that little hand of
Betty’s that had been laid so tremblingly and con-
fidingly in his; and yet how could he, a poverty-
stricken lawyer with absolutely no prospects at all,
ever dare to think of her, a lady of vast estates. Still,
there was some comfort in the fact that he had still
some business to transact for her, and would have
to return to Tinsdale again. He might at least see
her once more. So he solaced himself on his return
trip, feeling that he had done some good work, and
that he would have a pleasant report to give to Jane
Carson when he called upon her, as he meant to do
the next day.


EXIT BETTY 243
Stanhope story, while Jimmie remained to hear the
beginning, and get a glimpse of the wedding gown,
which Reyburn assured Jane he was sure she need
never return. He said he thought if the owner of it
was married ever in the future she would be likely
to want a gown that had no unpleasant associations.
Great excitement prevailed in Tinsdale as the
weeks went by. Betty had bought the lots either side
of the Carson house, and wonderful improvements
were in progress. A windmill was being erected and
water pipes laid scientifically. Workmen arrived,
some of them from the village, some from the city.
Extensive excavations went on about the old house,
and stone arrived. It began to be whispered about
that “ Miss Stanhope,” as Betty was now called, was
going to build the house all over and all of stone.
The work went forward rapidly as work can go
when there is money enough behind it, and the fam-
ily, living in the little old part of the house, and still
using the faithful tin bath-tub and shower of Bob’s
manufacture, now looked forward to real bath-
rooms on the bedroom floor, with tiled floors and
porcelain fittings. Large windows cropped out on
the new walls that were going up, a wide stone chim-
ney and porches. A charming little stone affair in
the back yard that went up so quietly it was hardly


‘I44 EXIT BETTY
noticed until it was done suddenly became the home
of a big gray car that arrived in town one morning.
Betty gave up her position at the Hathaways so
that she could have more time to superintend the
work and see that it was just as she wanted it, and
she and Bob spent hours going over the plans to-
gether, he making many wise suggestions. Mrs.
Hathaway called her “ Miss Stanhope” with elab-
orate ceremony, and made Elise kiss her whenever
she met her.
Betty went to a near-by town and bought some
pretty clothes, and a lot of things for Ma and Emily
.and Bob. A beautiful new piano came by express
and took the place of Mrs. Ba*rlow’s tinpanny one.
Then Betty went up to the city and bought more
things, furniture and silver and curtains and rugs,
and brought Jane back with her to take a rest and
see the little old house once more before it became
the big new house, and stay until she was ready to
be married; for Betty was determined to have the
house ready for Jane’s wedding.
When all the new beautiful things began to arrive
Betty told Ma that she had taken her in when she
was poor and homeless and absolutely penniless, and
now all these things were her reward, and Betty
couldn’t do enough ever to thank her for what she


EXIT BETTY 247
eyes went to the wide staircase, and here came Betty
trailing down the stairs on the arm of Reyburn,
wearing still the little white organdie she had worn a
few minutes before as a bridesmaid, only she had
thrown aside the rose-colored sash and put over her
brow a simple tulle veil, and her arms were full of
little pink rosebuds and lilies of the valley.
Up they walked in front of the minister just
where the others had stood, and were married with
the same sweet simple service, and everybody was so
surprised and delighted and excited and breathless
that Bob simply couldn’t stand it. He slipped into
the little music room where the piano had been in-
stalled, turned a handspring on the floor, and then
sat down and played chopsticks on the piano with
all the pedals on, till Ma had to send Emily in to
stop him.





4 ‘f C T‘?

PETER B. KYNE'S NOVELS


V llay be had whlrovur books an sold. Ask for Grant & Dunlap’: llst.
_’l:HE PRIDE OF PALOMAR
When two strong men clash and the under-dog has Irish
blood in his veins—there’s a tale that Kyne can tell! And
“ the girl " is also very much in evidence.
KINDRED OF THE DUST
‘ C Donald McKay, son of Hector McKay, millionaire lum
ber king, falls in love with “ Nan of the Sawdust Pile,” a
charming girl who has been ostracized by her townsfolk.
THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS




The fight of the Cardigans, father and son, to hold the
Valley of the Giants against treachery. The reader finishes
with a sense of having lived with big men and women in a
big country.
CAPPY RICKS
The story of old Cappy Ricks and of Matt Peasley, the
boy he tried to break because he knew the acid test was
good for his soul.
WEBS'I1ER.: MAN’S MAN
In a little ]im Crow Republic in Central America, a man
and a woman, hailing from the “ States," met up with a
revolution and for a while adventures and excitement came
so thick and fast that their love afiair had to wait for a lull
in the game.
CAPTAIN SCRAGGS
This sea yarn recounts the adventures of three rapscal~
lion sea-faring men-—-a Captain Scraggs, owner of the green
vegetable freighter Maggie, Gibney the mate and McGufl"
ney the engineer.
THE LONG CHANCE
A story fresh from the heart of the West, of San Pasqual,
9. sun-baked desert town, of Harley P. Hennage, the best
gambler, the best and worst man of San Pasqual and of
lovely Donna.



Gnossrsr & DUNLAP,A PUBLISHERS, New Yoax.


s - 3



J ;
EMERSON HOUGH’S NOVELS
lley be hlll wherever book: are told. Mk fer Breeset & Dunlap’: list.



THE COVERED WAGON
An epic story of the Great West from which the iam-
ous picture was made.
THE WAY OF A MAN
A colorful romance of the pioneer West before the
Civil War.



THE SAGEBRUSHER
An Eastern girl answere a matrimonial ad. and goes out
West in the hills of Montana to find her mate.
THE WAY OUT
A romance of the feud districtof the Cumberland country.
T

HE BROKEN GATE
A etory of broken social conventions and of a woman’e
determination to put the past behind her.
THE WAY TO THE WEST
Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Kit Carson figure in
this story of the opening of the West.
H


EART’S DESIRE
The story of what happens when the railroad came to a
little settlement in the far West.
THE PURCHASE PRICE
A story of Kentucky during the days after the American
Revolution.


GROSSET 8: DUNLAP, Pususr-mas, NEW YORK

, i



E " \
ELEANOR H. PORTER’S NOVELS

Isybohadusonvuvbooksuosuld. AslIor6roswtl=Dnlan’:ll:t.
IUST DAVID
The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to
fill in the hearts of the grufi farmer folk to whose care bl
left.
I HE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING


A compelling romance of love and marriage.
OH, MONEY! MONEY! ‘
Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the disposi-
tions of his relatives, sends them each a check for $100,.
000, and then as plain John Smith comes among them to
watch the result of his experiment.
SIX STAR RANCH
A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their sum-
mer on Six Star Ranch.
D


AWN
The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him
through the gulf of despair into a final victory gained oy
dedicating his life to the service of blind soldiers.
ACROSS THE YEARS
Short stories of our own kind and of our own people.
Contains some of the best writing Mrs. Porter has done
THE TANGLED THREADS
— In these stories we find the concentrated charm anl V
tenderness of all her other books.
TIE THAT BINDS
lntensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter’ s won >k.\
derfui talent for warm and vivid character drawing.
Gnossm & DUNLAP, Pmsusnsns, New Yon: