"I wish I could help you, Miss Barbara," he answered in low, earnest tones, sweeping the corridor with a quick look. "Even at the risk of your life?" "I'd jump at the chance to die for you!" was the simple answer. Barbara's voice choked and her little hand caught the boy's gratefully. His conquest was too easy, his love too big and generous! "I wish I could do it, Jimmy, without letting you risk your life, but I must see Norman." "I'll help you if I can, Miss Barbara, but I don't know how. The jailer won't let me in without an order from the regent." "I'll go in now," she went on, "get a piece of paper from his desk, forge the order, and sign his name. I can imitate his handwriting. I'll give it to you immediately, and watch until you get back to your post." "I'll do it!" the boy answered, his eyes shining. "Tell Norman," Barbara whispered, "that I have found Saka in the hills. He has built a skiff and has it ready to sail with his message for relief." "I understand." She entered Wolf's office unannounced and surprised him with her girlish buoyancy of spirit. With a light laugh she sprang on his big desk, sat down among his papers, and deftly closed her hand over one of his small official order-pads. "I cannot see Norman, to-day?" she asked. "Not to-day, my dear. A little later, yes, but not to-day!" He laughed carelessly and turned in his armchair to a messenger: "Take that order to the captain of the guard and tell him to report to me at seven o'clock to-night." While he spoke, the girl slipped from her place on the desk and thrust the order pad in her pocket. "Then I'm wasting breath to plead with you?" "Decidedly. But I congratulate you on the rational way you are beginning to look at things." As she moved to the door she smiled over her shoulder: "Time will work wonders, perhaps!" "I told you so," he laughed. She hurried to her room and wrote the order signing Wolf's name without a moment's hesitation: "Admit the guard bearing this order for the delivery of a personal message to the prisoner, Norman Worth. "WOLF--_Regent_." She stood at the window and watched the boy enter the jail. He stayed an interminable time! Each tick of the tiny watch in her hand seemed an hour. One minute, two, three, four, five minutes slowly dragged. Merciful God, would he never return? A thousand questions began to strangle her. Had Wolf suspected and played with her? Had the jailer recognized the trick and arrested the boy? Had Wolf discovered the boy's absence from his post? She looked at her watch again. He had been gone seven minutes! The door of the jail suddenly opened and the boy appeared. Her hand was tingling with a curious pain. She looked, and the nails of her fingers had cut the flesh as she had stood in agony counting the seconds.