ones sank and hardened--"why did that black hussy try to avoid telling
me you were home and Fair had gone off with that whelp, John March?
What? Why don't you speak so I can hear? What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid we'll disturb mom-a. Johanna should have told you plainly."

"Oh! indeed! I tell you, if it hadn't been for your mother's presence
I'd have thrown her out of the window." An unintentional murmur from
Barbara exasperated him to the point of ecstasy. He paled and smiled.

"Barb, did you want to keep me from knowing that Fair was going to
Widewood?" They looked steadily into each others' eyes. "Which of us is
it you don't trust, that Yankee, or your own father? Don't--" he lifted
his palm, but let it sink again. "Don't move your lips that way again; I
won't endure it. Barbara Garnet, this is Fannie Halliday's work! So help
me, God, I'd rather I'd taken your little white coffin in my arms
eighteen years ago and laid it in the ground than that you should have
learned from that poisonous creature the effrontry to suspect me of
dishonest--Silence! You ungrateful brat, if you were a son, I'd shake
the breath out of you. Have you _ever_ trusted me? Say!"--he stepped
close up--"Stop gazing at me like a fool and answer my question! Have
you?"

"Don't speak so loud."

"Don't tell me that, you little minx; you who have never half noticed
how sick your mother is. Barb"--the speaker's words came through his
closed teeth--"Mr. John March can distrust me and leave me out of his
precious company as much as he damn pleases--if you like his favorite
forms of speech--and so may your tomtit Yankee. But you--sha'n't! You
sha'n't repay a father's careful plans with suspicions of underhanded
rascality, you unregenerate--see here! Do those two pups know you didn't
want me to go? Answer me!"

She could not. Her lips moved as he had forbidden, and she was still
looking steadily into his blazing eyes, when, as if lightning had
struck, she flinched almost off her feet, her brain rang and roared, her
sight failed, and she knew she had been slapped in the face.

He turned his back, but the next instant had wheeled again, his face
drawn with pain and alarm. "I didn't mean to do that! Oh, good Lord! it
wa'n't I! Forgive me, Barb. Oh, Barb, my child, as God's my witness, I
didn't do it of my own free will. He let the devil use me. All my
troubles are coming together; your suspicions maddened me."

Her eyes were again in his. She sho