Yet--she closed her eyes to shut out the imagined scenes--to be branded as a woman who could accompany a man to such a resort as the Lakeside, and to remain with him there for days and nights--carousing!... She knew how she regarded women who were guilty of such sordid affairs. Other women would look at her as she looked at them, would draw away their skirts when she passed, would peer at her with hard, hostile, sneering eyes.... That would be her life thenceforward--the life of an outcast, of a woman detected in sin.... It would be horrible, unspeakably horrible--unbearable. She had valued herself so highly, had, without giving it conscious thought, felt herself to be so removed from such affairs as quite to dwell upon a planet where they could not exist. She had been proud without knowing she was proud.... It had not been so much a sensation of purity, a consciousness of purity, as a sureness in herself, a certainty that evil could not approach her.... And now.... “Evan--Evan--I am frightened,” she said. “If only you had not come,” he answered. “But I am here--I am glad I am here--with you.” He stretched out his hand toward her and she laid her hand in the clasp of his fingers. “We have until to-morrow night,” he said. “Twenty-four hours.” “But----” “Empires have fallen in twenty-four hours.” “Maybe--some one will come to look for us.” He shook his head. “They will have taken care of that.” “Then you--think there is no chance.” “I---- Carmel dear, the chance is slight. I must admit the chance is slight. But with twenty-four hours.... If----” His eyes traveled about the skimpily furnished room, searching for something, searching for it vainly. “If I could walk,” he said. “I’m--almost helpless.” She went to him, trembling, the horror of the future eating into her as if it were an acid-coated mantle. “I--I won’t be able to live,” she said. He did not answer, for his eyes were fixed on the door which led, not into the hall, but into an adjoining bedroom. They rested upon its white doorknob as if hypnotized. “Will you help me to that door?” he asked. “I’ll push the chair along. You--can you keep me from falling?” Slowly, not without twinges of hot pain in his injured ankle, they reached the door. Evan felt in his pocket for his penknife, and with it set about loosening the screw which held the knob in place. Twice he broke the blade of his knife, but at last he managed the thing. The white doorknob rested in his hand. “There,” he said, “that is something.” “What?... I don’t understand.” He sat in the chair, removed the shoe from his sound foot and then the sock. He did this slowly, methodically, and as methodically replaced the shoe on his sockless foot. Then he lifted from the floor the stocking and dropped into it the doorknob. It fitted snugly into the toe.