"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 shook her head and passed to her mirror, saying, slowly, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall." She glanced at the glass, but the redness of its fellow matched the smitten cheek, and she hurried to the door. "Barb"--the tone was a deep whine--she stopped without looking back. "Don't say anything to your mother to startle her. The slightest shock may kill her." Barbara entered the mother's chamber. Johanna was standing by a window. The daughter beamed on the maid, and turned to the bed; but consternation quenched the smile when she beheld her mother's face. "Why, mom-a, sweet." A thin hand closed weakly on her own, and two sunken blue eyes, bright with distress, looked into hers. "Where is he?" came a feeble whisper. "Pop-a? Oh, he's coming. If he doesn't come in a moment, I'll bring him." The daughter's glance rested for refuge on the white forehead. "Shall I go call him?"