"You're a good sport, Martha," he returned heartily. "I know just how
you feel about it. And I can promise you that there is not one of our
crowd that will ever whisper a thing. They are not that kind, and you
know how they all like you. Come, dear. Don't bother your head about it
any more. I don't like to see you like this. Let us go up to the house,
and show them how game you are,--shall we?"

He put his arm about her, but the woman gently pushed him away. "Don't
do that, now, Harry. Let me think."

"That is just what you must not do," he retorted, with a laugh.
"Thinking can't help matters. Come, let us go get a drink. That is what
you need."

She looked at him some time before she answered; then, with a quick
movement, she sprang to her feet:

"All right! You're on!" she cried, with a reckless laugh. "But you'll go
some if you keep up with me to-night."

And so, that evening, while Brian Kent and Betty Jo from the porch of
the little log house by the river watched the twinkling lights of the
clubhouse windows, the party with mad merriment tried to help a woman to
forget.

But save for the unnatural brightness of her eyes and the heightened
color in her face, drink seemed to have little effect on Martha Kent
that night. When at a late hour the other members of the wild company,
in various flushed and dishevelled stages of intoxication, finally
retired to their rooms, Martha, in her apartment, seated herself at the