CHAPTER XVIII.
BETTY JO FACES HERSELF.
All that day Auntie Sue wondered about Judy, while Brian and Betty Jo exhausted their inventive faculties in efforts to satisfy the dear old lady with plausible reasons for the mountain girl's disappearance.
During the forenoon, Brian canvassed the immediate neighborhood, and returned with the true information that Judy had stopped at the first house below Elbow Rock for breakfast, where she had told the people that she was going back to her father, because she was "doggone tired of working for them there city folks what was a-livin' at Auntie Sue's." This was, in a way, satisfactory to Auntie Sue, because it assured her that the girl had met with no serious accident and because she knew very well the mountain-bred girl's ability to take care of herself in the hills.

But, still, the gentle mistress of the log house by the river was troubled to think that Judy would leave her so without a word.
Betty Jo was so occupied during the day by her efforts to relieve Auntie Sue that she had but little time left for thought of herself or for reflecting on the situation revealed in her encounter with Judy.

But many times during the day the mountain girl's passionate accusation came back to her, "You-all are a-lyin'! You-all come back 'cause HE is here." Nor could she banish from her memory the look that was on Brian Kent's face that morning when he was carrying her in his arms back from the brink of the river-bank, over which the frenzied Judy had so nearly sent her to her death.

And so, when the day at last was over, and she was alone in her room, it was not strange that Betty Jo should face herself squarely with several definite and pointed and exceedingly personal questions.
It was like Betty Jo to be honest with herself and to demand of herself that her problems be met squarely.
"First of all, Betty Jo," she demanded, in her downright, straightforward way of going most directly to the heart of a matter, "are you in love with Brian Kent ?" Without hesitation, the answer came, "I have not permitted myself to love him." "You have not permitted yourself to love him?
That means that you would be in love with him if you dared, doesn't it ?" And Betty Jo, in the safe seclusion of her room, felt her cheeks burn as she acknowledged the truth of the deduction.
The next question was inevitable: "Is Brian Kent in love with you, Betty Jo ?" And Betty Jo, recalling many, many things, was compelled to answer, from the triumphant gladness of her heart: "He is trying not to be, but he can't help himself.

And"-- the downright and straightforward young woman continued--"because I know that Brian Kent is trying so hard not to love me is the real reason why I have not permitted myself to love him." But the clear-thinking, practical Betty Jo protested quickly: "You must remember that you are wholly ignorant of Brian Kent's history, except for the things he has chosen to tell you.