"No." Mrs. Fanshaw drew herself up. "Consideration for me prevented that outrage. The editors preserved the same delicate silence that they kept when you were arrested. But you don't seem to remember that city dailies are read in Shawnee Springs. One vile sheet even printed your picture."
The girl's face crimsoned painfully.
"Oh!" she cried sharply. "How could they! Where could they get it?"
Her mother hesitated.
"Amelia was in a way responsible," she admitted. "She was naturally anxious at your disappearance, and when a nice-mannered young man called and said that if he had your description he could help in the search, the dear girl received him with open arms. How could she know he was a reporter!"
"She gave that man my picture!"
"Like a trusting child. Amelia has felt all our trouble so keenly. For weeks after you were sent away she could scarcely look one of her set in the face. She said she felt like a refuge girl herself. I had to appeal to our pastor to make her see that neither of us was to blame. She shrank from the world even then, but the world came to her."
"Meaning Harry Fargo?" queried Jean, emerging suddenly from the gloom induced by Amelia's imbecility.
"Harry was particularly sweet," admitted Mrs. Fanshaw, archly. "In fact, he has become a son to me in everything but name. If Amelia would only—but I mustn't gossip."
Jean smiled without mirth.