if you only could do it," she cried so fervently, that his heart
leaped with pity for her.

"I love you, Rosalie. I would give my whole life to make you happy.
Listen, dearest--don't turn away from me! Are you afraid of me?" He was
almost wailing it into her ear.

"I--I was only thinking of the danger, Wicker. You are not watching the
road," she said, flushing a deep red. He laughed gaily for the first
time in months.

"It is a wide road and clear," he said jubilantly. "We are alone and we
are merely drifting. The machine is alive with happiness.
Rosalie--Rosalie, I could shout for joy! You _do_ love me? You will be
my wife?"

She was white and silent and faint with the joy of it all and the pain
of it all. Joy in the full knowledge that he loved her and had spoken in
spite of the cloud that enveloped her, pain in the certainty that she
could not accept the sacrifice. For a long time she sat staring straight
down the broad road over which they were rolling.

"Wicker, you must not ask me now," she said at last, bravely and
earnestly. "It is sweet to know that you love me. It is life to me--yes,
life, Wicker. But, don't you see? No, no! You must not expect it. You
must not ask it. Don't, don't, dear!" she cried, drawing away as he
leaned toward her, passion in his eyes, triumph in his face.

"But we love each other!" he cried. "What matters the rest? I want
you--_you!_"

"Have you considered? Have you thought? I have, a thousand times, a
thousand bitter thoughts. I cannot, I will not be your--your wife,
Wicker, until--"

In vain he argued, pleaded, commanded. She was firm and she felt she was
right if not just. Underneath it all lurked the fear, the dreadful fear
that she may have been a child of love, the illegitimate offspring of
passion. It was the weight that crushed her almost to lifelessness; it
was the bar sinister.

"No, Wicker, I mean it," she said in the end resolutely. "Not until I
can give you a name in exchange for your own."

"Your name shall one day be Bonner if I have to wreck the social system
of the whole universe to uncover another one for you."

The automobile had been standing, by some extraordinary chance, in the
cool shade of a great oak for ten minutes or more, but it was a wise,
discreet old oak.

CHAPTER XXX

The Hemisphere Train Robbery

Anderson Crow lived at the extreme south end of Tinkletown's principal
thoroughfare. The "calaboose" was situated at the far end of M