Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/125

 ferent thing. And yet, as he now reminded himself, it ought not to be considered a different thing. So he told himself it must be that he was afraid of being seen and known as a reporter by "refined people," and this made him hurry up the Elevated steps, two at a time, to show that it was a mistake.

But whether it was foolish or not, he did not like the idea of being seen on this assignment, and he made up his mind on the train to keep out of her way; he could cover the story well enough without having a talk with her.

But you see there was no dodging the great fact that this woman was a first cousin to the girl uptown, who seemed to him to be what a girl ought to be, and who believed in him. That was what had kept him awake during the night.

Whether the girl ever knew it or not, yet he would always know that he had deliberately … It would not be a pleasant thing to remember about himself.

All the old repugnance and loathing for this thing of reporting came upon him worse than ever, and he pictured himself, as he often had before, going back to the of-