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"Well, she's up in her room, but you kain't go up there!"

"I-I'll call her from the hall!" stuttered Abner, turning brick-red.

"We-ell . . . I reckon you can do that," she acceded grudgingly.

The landlady gave the youth a look of hatred as he turned swiftly to the hallway. A constriction passed over her thin face. As she turned to the kitchen she trembled in an undertone, "Scan'alous! Him to have the face to come an' ast for her!" It was a cruel thing, this tragic love affair in her loveless hotel.

A moment later she could hear Abner calling Nessie's name from the foot of the stairs in edged tones. He tried to restrain his voice not to disturb the diners.

"Nessie! Oh, Nessie! Nessie Sutton! Oh, Nessie Sutton!"

At last Miss Scovell could endure these anxious trembling cries no longer. She came angrily into the hallway.

"Do shut up! I'll go tell her! You've made my place the talk of the town as it is! What do you want with her?"

"I-I want to m-marry her," shivered Abner.

"O-oh, you—" A shudder went through the withered woman as she hurried stiffly up the stairs. She had no idea why this moved her with such a sense of her own frustration. She could but sense, not analyze, the logic of these facts—if an illicit love finally could be rewarded with peace, then her own solitary inhibited life had been in vain. The punishment of evildoers was a sort of negative dividend that fell due on Miss Scovell's negative investment in morality. If that failed, she would be a bankrupt indeed!

She hurried up the stairs and very quickly came down again with anxiety and yet a sort of malicious pleasure in her face.

"She ain't in her room, Abner! I don't know where she went to—well, no matter where; it's good riddance of bad rubbish!"

While the landlady and the teamster stared at each other,