Free Bright Arrows by Grace Livingston Hill

his amorous mouth, followed by another stinging blow across his eyes. Then turning, she flew across the hall and up the stairs as if on wings, calling back from the head of the stairs to the young soldier below her who was bent in pain and struggling to overcome the effect of the blinding blows she had dealt him.
    "Go away!" she called. "And never come back again!"
    Then she went into her room, shut the door sharply, and turned the key in the lock.
    Both Janet and Tabor were nearby, having heard it all of course, though discreetly in the background. Now Tabor came forward with the young man's cap and coat in his hands.
    "You'd best be going!" he advised in his most severe and unfriendly tone and helped Caspar on with his coat, handed him his hat, and opened the front door for him.
    So Caspar Carvel staggered blindly down the steps, pausing a moment at the walk, with his hand over his eyes, to recover his poise and self-assurance, and then vanished down the street and around the corner.
    Upstairs Eden in her quiet room threw herself on her bed, weeping her heart out for an old friend who she felt was utterly unworthy and had gone out of her life forever.
    In an interval as her sobs subsided, Eden heard Janet's gentle step and then a soft tap on the door.
    "Yes?" she said. "Who is it?"
    "It's juist old Janet, my leddy. I merely wanted to inquire ef you would want the perlice sent for again."
    "The police?" said Eden, opening the door and presenting an astonished face. "Come in, Janet. What do you mean?"
    "Wull," said Janet as Eden let her in, "I thought as ye had throwed out two young gentlemen, mebbe ye was expectin' a third yet, the night?"
    Then suddenly Eden went off into a peal of laughter.

Chapter 6
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    But tears and laughter did not entirely banish the trouble from Eden's thoughts. She kept going over and over what Caspar had said. Did he really mean all those terrible things? And how had she answered him? Was it right to send him away like that, never to return?
    But, of course, it was enough to raise her righteous wrath, just the way he had spoken of her father. Her wonderful father! Even if Mr. Thurston had been old-fashioned, which he wasn't in the least, Caspar had no right, just after death had taken her father away, to come into the home where he had always been welcomed and bring him into scorn before his own daughter. She was right to feel it was outrageous. She was right to rebuke him for that. But when he not only did that but brought her father's God into contempt also, what could she do but strike? Send him away?
    And now there came to her the memory of other days. Why? Caspar had been as earnest as any of the others in their young people's meeting that they all attended. He even made good speeches and sometimes led in prayer. She always used to be so proud of him for he had a way about him when he was president of their society and said so many good things, so fitting to the subject. Was it possible that he had so utterly changed? It almost seemed to her that he must have been drinking, or he never would have talked like that, though the Caspar of old never drank. Had he learned to do that, too, as well as to despise holy things?
    Not that Eden herself had ever been particularly spiritual, but she had been regular in her church attendance, conforming always to the lines laid down by their church and the requests of their nice old pastor, being most active in all the activities of the church. But now it suddenly occurred to her that here was something more than mere church activity required to meet a situation in which God Himself had been challenged, and somehow she felt she didn't have it. At least, she didn't know how to answer one who talked as Caspar had done. Somehow she must find out what to say if anybody ever talked like that again in her presence. She just couldn't stand it. There must be an answer to such blasphemies, or her father, her good, wise father, would never have believed. It wasn't