Harriet and the Piper

by Kathleen Thompson Norris

"But--my God, my dear girl, he spoke of you as his wife!" Richard said.

"He said I had been. Not that I was now!"

The man looked at her, looked away at the river, and shrugged his shoulders as if he were mystified by the ways of women.

"But--you were never his wife?" he said, flatly.

"Oh, no! You didn't think," Harriet said, hurt, "that I would have married you, or any one else, if I had been!"

"You let him blackmail you for that," Richard further marvelled.

"I knew--in my own mind, of course, that I was not to blame," the girl said, anxiously. "But it sounded--horrible."

Richard bit his lower lip, looked critically at his racket, slowly shook his head.

"I didn't mind what any one thought," Harriet said, reading his thought. "But they did!"

"They?" Richard repeated, patiently.