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 Wrenching himself free from her hands, Drew dropped down on the floor and began to hunt around for the key. The blood surged into his head like a hot tide, and he felt all gritty-lunged and smothered, as though he were crawling under water. After a minute he stumbled to his feet and slipped the recre - ant key smoothly into the lock, and swung his door wide open, and turned back to Ruth. She stood facing him defiantly, her eyes blazing, her poor hands twisting.

Drew nodded toward the door, and shoved the suit case with his foot across the threshold. His face was very stern and set.

"You want me to take you home ?" he said. "This is home. What do you mean ? Take you back to your Brother's house ? You can t go back to your Brother's house on your wedding day. It would n't be fair to me. And I won't help you do an unfair thing even to me. You've got to give me a chance!"

He nodded again toward the open door, but the girl did not budge. His face brightened suddenly, and he stepped back to where she was standing, and lifted her up in his arms and swung her to his shoul der and stumbled through the pitch-black doorway. "Do you remember," he cried, the day at your grammar-school picnic when I carried you over the railroad trestle because the locomotive that was