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FLAMING

YOUTH

“Dee! Dee! Where are you?” The petulant, flattened voice of helplessness came like a stab of pain through the night. A light, tenuous and sharp, flashed out from the wrecked man’s window. Its ray touched the cedar overshadowing them. Dee answered at once. “I’m coming, Jim. Just a moment. Good-bye, Stanley.” He gathered her into a slow, overniastering pressure of body to body, face to face. “Dee, I love you. I want you.” “T know.

God, how I know!”

“As you love and want me. matter !”

What does anything else

“Oh, love; don’t make it so bitter hard for me!

I can’t

leave him. He needs me so. I can’t! I can’t! “Dee! The pain has come back. Where are you?” “Coming, Jim, dear!” She turned away from Wollaston without another look; heard him thrashing through the bushy growth like a man blinded; felt her knees sag. and give way. She toppled slowly forward and lay, face down upon the earth that gives life, that gives courage, that gives endurance to bear the deadliest hurt, her fingers tearing in agony at the young grasses. Presently she heaved herself up and went into the house. Her mouth was firm, her eyes tearless, A good sort. <A good sport.