"
And so, that evening, while Brian Kent and Betty Jo from the porch of
the little log house by the river watched the twinkling lights of the
clubhouse windows, the party with mad merriment tried to help a woman to
forget.
But save for the unnatural brightness of her eyes and the heightened
color in her face, drink seemed to have little effect on Martha Kent
that night. When at a late hour the other members of the wild company,
in various flushed and dishevelled stages of intoxication, finally
retired to their rooms, Martha, in her apartment, seated herself at the
window to look away over the calm waters of The Bend to a single light
that showed against the dark mountainside. The woman did not know that
the light she saw was in Brian Kent's room.
Long after Betty Jo had said good-night, Brian walked the floor in
uneasy wakefulness. The meeting with the man Green and his too-evident
thoughts as to the relations of the man and woman who were living
together in the log house by the river filled Brian with alarm; while
the very presence of the man from the city awoke old apprehensions that
in his months of undisturbed quiet in Auntie Sue's backwoods home had
almost ceased to be. Through Auntie Sue's teaching and influence; his
work on his book; the growing companionship of Betty Jo and their love,
Brian had almost ceased to think of that absconding bank clerk who
had so recklessly launched himself on a voyage to the unknown in the
darkness of that dreadful night.
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