that could restore me ever again was her nearness. I gasped.

"If you love me--why are you going away?"

"To give you a chance. A chance to find out what is best for you," she said. "To be sure of yourself and what you really need." Her husky voice broke. "Oh, my darling!"

Then the receiver clicked against my ear.

"I'm sure of one thing-only one thing," I cried. "I love you, Jan, I need you!" But she couldn't hear

my cry.

Jan went to San Francisco.

I had never felt so alone in all of my life. The world seemed an unreal, fantastic dream fashioned of ice! Cold and sharp. Only my memories of Jan's love seemed warm and real.

Bob gloated as I suffered every time he came near me. I protested against marrying him. But our folks went right ahead planning a church wedding. The horror of it almost made me stop breathing. Bob and I didn't love each other. I loathed him! He only wanted to marry me so he could continue punishing me for having dared to give a girl the response he could never arouse in me. Marriage to Bob was wrong for me. I could not stand before God and say, "I do," in a marriage ceremony that would be a mockery.

My love for Jan, her love for me was clean and decent because we were made for each other. We were born the way we were, and for us to be in love was right. Because it was, we had a right to our expression of passion.

I pleaded with Mother,

"For me to be married to Bob is as much of a crime as for Beth to have been married to a girl.

Mother backed away, her eyes dark with loathing and fixed on my face.

"You're obscene!" she choked.

Dear God! I thought. We are all as we are, though we are not alike! How can I make Mother understand? "Melba, you must straighten out!"

Mother's tense hand smoothed the skirt of her black dress. Ever since I'd said I loved Jan, she had been wearing black. As if it indicated she was mourning the loss of the girl she had thought me to be. This was a subtle way of punishing me, for being different from the pattern by which Mother and the majority of women are fashioned. Punishing me for something I could not change any more than I could change the color of my eyes. But Mother refused to understand!

Yet, I was sure God understood.... But people who did not could be so merciless, so cruel! It wasn't fair. There was no justice in it. But-what could I do? My entire family was against me.

I needed Jan. Together we could battle the world somehow. And find a way to be true to ourselves and to each other... But alone I was helpless and lost. Utterly lost.

"No," I told myself staunchly, "I'm not utterly lost, because I know God understands people like Jan and me. God will help us.

Only that thought saved me from going insane.

I gave up my job at the dress shop. Mother wanted me to be at home where she could keep tab on me. I was glad to escape going to the shop where I'd daily been associated with Jan. Going there and not finding her, would have been too much misery to bear.

I deliberately avoided any further association with the girls I'd worked with. I knew they'd discuss Jan, and ask me if I knew why she quit her job so suddenly and left town. I couldn't endure that.

Beth and I had never been close. Now that she knew what my "difference" stemmed from, we were distant. She behaved as if I had a contagious disease and she feared contamination. Hal treated me with contempt.