"She wanted to--she was coming here--she is lost?" he mumbled, as though trying to fathom a mystery. Infinite pity replaced the distraction in the girl's face. "Forgive me, Mr. Wade!" she cried. "Not for my folly--you can't overlook that. Forgive me for wasting time. But I didn't know how to say it to you." She put her woman's weakness from her, though the struggle was a mighty one, and her face showed it. "I won't waste any more words, Mr. Wade. John Barrett has been at my father's house for weeks. He has been near death--he is near death now, but the big doctors from the city say that he will get well. He must have been through some terrible trouble up here." She looked at him with questioning gaze, as though to ask how much he knew of the strain that had prostrated John Barrett, the stumpage king. "He was in great danger--and his exposure--" stammered Wade. But she went on, hurriedly: "It was fever, and it went to his head, and he talked and raved. His daughter came from the city and nursed him, and she has heard him talking, talking, talking, all the time--talking about you, and how you saved him from the fire; talking about a woman who is dead and a man who is alive, and a girl--" "Does Elva Barrett--know?" he demanded, hoarsely. "It was too plain not to know--after she saw that girl, Mr. Wade. The girl was there at our house--she is there now. It isn't all clear to us yet. We have only the ravings of a sick man--and the face of that girl. Father doesn't understand all of it, either. But he knows that you do, although you haven't told him." She clutched her trembling hands to hold them steady. "And he has talked and talked of other things, Mr. Wade--the sick man has. He has said that you have his reputation, and his prospects, and the happiness of his family all in your hands, and that you are waiting to ruin him because he has abused you; and he has tossed in his bed and begged some one to come to you and promise you--buy you--coax you--" "It's a cursed lie--infernal, though a sick man babble it!" Wade cried, heart-brokenly. "It holds me up as a blackmailer, Miss Nina. It makes me seem a wretch in Elva's eyes. And yet--was she--was she coming here thinking I was that kind--coming here to beg for her father?" he demanded. "We--I--oh, I don't like to tell you we believed that of you," the girl sobbed. "No, I didn't believe it. But if you had only heard him lying there talking, talking! And you were the one that he seemed to fear. And we thought if you knew of it you wouldn't want him to worry that way. And if we could carry back some word of comfort from you to him--She wanted to come to you, Mr. Wade, and I encouraged her and helped her to come--because--because--" The girl caught her breath in a long sob, and cried: "She loves you, Mr. Wade! And I've pitied you and her ever since that day in the train when I found out about it."