"No, Mr. March. If you were elected you'd see your mistake and resign in a week, and I couldn't endure the mor-ti-fi-ca-tion." John colored. He thought she was hinting at fickleness; but she gave him a smile which said so plainly, "The fault would be mine," that he was more than comfortable again--on the surface of his feelings, I mean. And so with Barbara. The train had begun a down-grade and was going faster and faster. As she stood sweetly contemplating the sunset sky and sinking hills, fearing to move lest that arm behind her should be withdrawn and yet vigilant to give it no cause to come nearer, an unvoiced cry kept falling back into her heart--"Tell him!--For your misguided father's sake! Now!--Now!--Stop this prattle about friendship, love, and truth, and tell him his danger!" But in reality she had not, and was not to have, the chance. The young land-owner stood beside her staring at nothing and trying to bite his mustache. He came to himself with a start. "Miss Garnet----" As she turned the sky's blush lighted her face. "That case we were speaking of inside, you know----" "Yes, sir." "Well, as I said, I knew that case myself. But, my goodness, Miss Garnet, you won't infer that I was alluding in any way to--to any experience of my own, will you?" She made no reply. "Law! Miss Garnet, you don't think I'd offer anybody a friendship pulled out of a slough of despond, do you?" Barbara looked at him in trembling exaltation. "Mr. March, I know what has happened!" He winced, but kept his guard. "Do you mean you know how it is I am on this train?" "Yes, I know it all." "O my soul! Have I betrayed it?" "No, sir; the train conductor--I led him on--told us all about it before we were twenty miles from Suez." "I ought to have guessed you'd find it out," said John, in a tone of self-rebuke. "Yes," she replied, driving back her tears with a quiet smile, "I think you ought." "Why--why, I--I--I'm overwhelmed. Gracious me! I owe you an humble apology, Miss Garnet. Yes, I do. I've thrust a confidence on you without your permission. I--I beg your pardon! I didn't mean to, I declare I didn't, Miss Garnet." "It's safe." "I know it. I'm surer of that than if you were anyone else I've ever known in my life, Miss Garnet." "It shall be as if I had never heard it." "O no! I don't see how it can. In fact--well--I don't see why it should--unless you wish it so. Of course, in that case----" "That's not a con-tin-gen-cy," said Barbara, and for more than a minute they listened to the clangorous racket of the rails. Then John asked her if it did not have a quality in it almost like music and she brightened up at him as she nodded. He made a gesture toward the receding land, bent to her in the uproar and cried, "It scarcely seems a moment since those hills were full of spring color, and now they're blue in the distance!" She looked at them tenderly and nodded again.