Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/227

Rh to keep myself free. But I cannot stay with you with—without the truth."

"Do you suppose," the girl challenged, "that I could not account for your still staying up, after leaving me, without thinking you a thief?"

"No!" Preston cried. "For—oh, you said you, yourself, stayed up till after twelve, too! Could you understand me from that?"

But the girl now flushed deeper and bowed her head and did not answer.

Preston pulled himself together.

"But that only makes it more necessary for me to go till I can come back to you clear," he said hollowly. "So good-bye!" he cried. "It is only that I care so much to stay with you that again I can only say, Good-bye!"

He caught her hand once more. "Good-bye!" He crushed it between both his own, and was gone. 203