However, the bully received scant sympathy, even from his most intimate friends, and his prestige in the community was henceforth destroyed.  Arthur did not crow, for his part.  He told the girls frankly of his attempt to run away and evade the meeting, which sensible intention was only frustrated by Bob West’s interference, and they all agreed he was thoroughly justified.  The young man had proved to them his courage years before and none of the girls was disposed to accuse him of cowardice for not wishing to shoot or be shot by such a person as Bill Sizer.

A few days following the duel another incident occurred which was of a nature so startling that it drove the Sizer comedy from all minds.  This time Thursday Smith was the hero.

Hetty Hewitt, it seems, was having a desperate struggle to quell the longings of her heart for the allurements of the great city.  She had been for years a thorough Bohemienne, frequenting cafes, theatres and dance halls, smoking and drinking with men and women of her class and, by degrees, losing every womanly quality with which nature had generously endowed her.  But the girl was not really bad.  She was essentially nervous and craved excitement, so she had drifted into this sort of life because no counteracting influence of good had been injected into her pliable disposition.  None, that is, until the friendly editor for whom she worked, anticipating her final downfall, had sought to save her by sending her to a country newspaper.  He talked to the girl artist very frankly before she left for Millville, and Hetty knew he was right, and was truly grateful for the opportunity to redeem herself.  The sweet girl journalists with whom she was thrown in contact were so different from any young women she had heretofore known, and proved so kindly sympathetic, that Hetty speedily became ashamed of her wasted life and formed a brave resolution to merit the friendship so generously extended her.

But it was hard work at first.  She could get through the days easily enough by wandering in the woods and taking long walks along the rugged country roads; but in the evenings came the insistent call of the cafes, the cheap orchestras, vaudeville, midnight suppers and the like.  She strenuously fought this yearning and found it was growing less and less powerful to influence her.  But her nights were yet restless and her nerves throbbing from the effects of past dissipations.  Often she would find herself unable to sleep and would go out into the moonlight when all others were in bed, and “prowl around with the cats,” as she expressed it, until the wee hours of morning.  Often she told Patsy she wished there was more work she could do.  The drawings required by the paper never occupied her more than a couple of hours each day.  Sometimes she made one of her cleverest cartoons in fifteen or twenty minutes.

“Can’t I do something else?” she begged.  “Let me set type, or run the ticker—­I can receive telegrams fairly well—­or even write a column of local comment.  I’m no journalist, so you’ll not be envious.”