The Prescott daily news., 1918-04-09
CHAPTER iII-Contlnued

"If you don't like my manner" Barrow retorted stormily. Then he cut his sentence in two, and glared at her. The twin devils of jealousy and distrust were riding him hard and it flashed over Hazel that in his mind she was prejudged, and that her ex- planation. if she made 1t. would only add fuel to the flame.
 She turned abruptly and left him. What did 1t matter, anyway? She was too proud to plead. and 1t was worse than useless to explain.
 Even so, womanlike, she listened, ex- pecting to hear Jacks step hurrying up behind. She could not imagine him letting her go like that. But he did not come, and when, at a distance of two blocks, she stole backward glance, he had disappeared.
 She returned to the boarding house. The parlor door stood wide and the curious, quickly averted glance of girl she knew sent her quivering up to her room. There was only one cheer She believed that he loved her, and she could not believe-she could not conceive-him capable of keeping aloof. obdurate and unforgiving, once he got out of the black mood he was in.
 She was still sitting by the window, watching the yellow crimson of the sunset. when someone rapped at her door. A uniformed messenger boy greeted her when she opened 1t:
 Package for Miss Hazel Weir"
 She signed the delivery sheet. The address on the package was in Jacks handwriting. A box of chocolates, or some little peace offering. maybe. That was like Jack when he was sorry for anything. They had quarreled be- fore-over trifies, too.
 She opened 1t hastily. A swift heart sinking followed. In the small card board box rested folded scarf, and thrust in 1t small gold stickpin- the only thing she had ever given Jack Barrow. There was no message. She needed none to understand.
 The sparkle of the small diamond on her finger drew her gaze. She worked his ring over the knuckle, and NIOppeu IL OlI thc NIltIt llle face in the silver frame smiled up at her. She stared at the picture for one long minute fixedly, with unchanging expression. and suddenly she swept 1t from the dresser with savage sweep of her hand, dashed 1t on the floor, and stamped it shapeless with her slippered heel.
 "Oh, ohr she gasped. q hate you I hate youi I despise youl"
 And then she flung herself across the bed and sobbed hysterically into a pillow.
 Through the night Hazel dozed fit- fully, waking out of uneasy sleep to lie staring. wide-eyed, into the dark, every nerve In her body taut, her mind by turns mastered her, and at day. break she rose, heavy-lidded and phys ically weary.
 The first thing upon which her gaze alighted was the crumpled photo in its shattered frame; and, sitting on the side of her bed, she laughed at the sudden fury in which she had de- stroyod 1t; but there was no mirth in her laughter.
 She gathered up the bits of broken glass and the bent frame, and put them in a drawer, dressed herself, and went down to breakfast. She was too deeply engrossed in her own troubles to notice or care whether any subtle change was becoming manifest in the uftffyde of her fellow hOardprs The worst, she felt sure, had already over taken her.
 She had little lime to spare. and that time she devoted to making up a package of Barrow's ring and few other trfnkets which he had given her. This she addressed to his office and posted while on her way to work.
 She got through the day somehow. struggling against thoughts that would persist In creeping into her mind and stirring up emotions that she was de-