Free Not My Will and The Light in My Window by Francena H. Arnold

long summer, and I promise you a hundred times over it will never happen again. Did you miss me? Your letters didn’t sound like it.” He looked at her half teasingly, half pleadingly.
    “I missed you so much I didn’t dare put one bit of it on paper,” she replied huskily. “I wrote you long letters—but they frightened me, and I burned them.”
    “Oh, that wasn’t right,” he exclaimed. “After we got into it there wasn’t any way out, though. The folks really did need me, and the old professor needed you. We promised not to tell, and we didn’t. But look here, young lady,” and he placed a finger under her chin and tilted her eyes to look straight into his own, “here’s one decision of mine that is absolutely final. I’m not going home again without you.”
    “I hope you won’t have to, dear. It was all harderthan I dreamed it could be,” she said, smoothing softly the hand that had grown hard with the summer’s toil. “But it is all behind us now, and we have the rest of our lives to be together. You’ve done the right thing, and I’ve done the helpful thing, so let’s not grieve over it anymore but look ahead to this year together at school. And—oh, Chad!” Her face brightened with the sudden thought. “We still have time to go out to the lake together for a few days before registration.”
    His only answer was a kiss. Then for a time they rode together in silence, enjoying the familiar sights and sounds of the big city.
    Suddenly Ellen sat up. “Chad, this driver must be lost. We’re not going the right way!”
    “Yes, we are,” he returned mysteriously. “I want to show you something. Afterward we can go over to the campus if you like.”
    A look of wonderment came on Ellen’s face, and it increased when the taxi drew up before an apartment building and stopped. Chad helped her out, and the driver carried her bag up to the entrance.
    “Chad, what in the world—” she began, but he raised a quieting finger.
    “Now, just wait a minute,” he replied.
    He unlocked the door and drew Eleanor inside. “Follow me,” he said mysteriously and started up the steps. On the second floor he opened another door, took Eleanor’s hand, and pulled her inside.
    “Welcome home, Mrs. Stewart,” he said with a flourish.
    “Chad! What is this?” she exclaimed, looking around in astonishment.
    “Just what I said. Home. I’m the head of this house, and I’m setting my foot down. I’ve rented this apartment. No weekend wife for me any longer.”
    Before he had even finished his speech Eleanor’s comprehension returned and she had flung herself into his arms. “Oh, darling, this is wonderful,” she exclaimed.
    Chad looked frowning into the hall mirror. “Mrs. Stewart, if you unsettle my necktie like that again I’ll take you back to the university and exchange you for a set of books.”
    She laughed unsteadily and promised to be more dignified. Chad sat down on the studio couch between the casement windows and drew her down beside him.
    “Rest here awhile, and then we’ll inspect our nice, shiny new home together.”
    “Chad, we can’t do this!”
    “We can, and we will.”
    “But how? We can’t afford it in the first place. And no one knows we are married.”
    “One person does now—the manager of this building. But no one at school will find out. After all, we are nearly four miles from the university, and when we leave there at the end of the day, our lives are our own. As for the cost,” Chad went on, a little frown puckering his brow, “well, I don’t feel so good about that, for you’ll have to pay your share just as if you were living at your old address. I wish it weren’t that way, but until we’re through school, I don’t see any other way. And as there was still a small discrepancy in the rent between what I could pay and what the rent costs,” Chad finished smilingly, “I asked the maintenance man whether he coulduse a strong extra hand on Saturdays and