, she laughed hysterically.

But Roger did not laugh. He bent over her, with all his boyish soul in
his eyes. She crimsoned as she turned away from him.

[Sidenote: Please?]

"Please?" he asked, very tenderly. "You did once."

"No," she cried, shrilly.

Roger straightened himself instantly. "Then I won't," he said, softly.
"I won't do anything you don't want me to--ever."

XVI

Betrayal

The long weeks dragged by and, at last, the end of Barbara's
imprisonment drew near. The red-haired young man who had previously
assisted Doctor Conrad came down with one of the nurses and removed the
heavy plaster cast. The nurse taught Miriam how to massage Barbara with
oils and exercise the muscles that had never been used.

"Doctor Conrad told me," said the red-haired young man, "to take your
father back with me to-morrow, if you were ready to have him go. The
sooner the better, he thought."

[Sidenote: Love and Terror]

Barbara turned away, with love and terror clutching coldly at her heart.
"Perhaps," she said, finally. "I'll talk with father to-night."

Her own forgotten agony surged back into her remembrance, magnified an
hundred fold. Fear she had never had for herself strongly asserted
itself now, for him. "If it should come out wrong," she thought, "I
could never forgive myself--never in the wide world."

When the doctor and nurse had gone to the hotel and Miriam was busy
getting supper, Ambrose North came quietly into Barbara's room.

"How are you, dear?" he asked, anxiously.

"I'm all right, Daddy, except that I feel very queer. It's all
different, some way. Like the old woman in _Mother Goose_, I wonder if
this can be I."

There was a long pause. "Are they going back to-morrow," he asked, "the
doctor and nurse who came down to-day?"

"Yes," answered Barbara, in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

The old man took her hand in his and leaned over her. "Dear," he
pleaded, "may I go, too?"

Barbara was startled. "Have they said anything to you?"

[Sidenote: Long Waiting]

"No, I was just thinking that I could go with them as well as with
Doctor Conrad. It is so long to wait," he sighed.

"I cannot bear to have you hurt," answered Barbara, with a choking sob.

"I know," he said, "but I bore it for you. Have you forgotten?"

There was no response in words, but she breathed hard, every shrill
respiration fraught with dread.

"Flower of the Dusk," he pleaded, "may I go?"

"Yes,"