Barbara had been at war with herself all day—distraught, troubled, afraid to believe that which she most desired. And with the dusk her uneasiness and her wavering suspense had deepened, heralding an anguish of self-hatred and humiliation that shirked the ordeal of another meeting. She dreaded lest John Gore should come, and yet listened for his coming, fearing and longing for him in one breath, the past and present fighting for her desire. Twice she rolled up the sheets to succor him in his climb, and twice unrolled them with a fever of indecision. Her heart labored with the secret that it held, striving against the untellable, yet trying to beat out nothing but the truth. There was that eternal blood-debt between them, lurid to her, now that the night had come, like the glare of a fire reddening the sky. Barbara walked to and fro awhile, and then stood listening, leaning against the wall. Nor had she been long motionless when there was a faint rustling of the ivy, a sound as of something moving, of something drawing near to her in the darkness. She climbed the bed and put her hands to the bars. A faint whisper came up to her out of the sibilant shiver of the leaves. “Barbara!” The fever of doubt and of fear left her suddenly. “John!” “Can you help me?” “Yes; wait.” She was down instantly, rolling the sheets and knotting them into a rope. The strands of her hair were under the pillow. She took them and wound them round the knots, and, making them fast to a bar, threw the end thereof out of the window. But the rope would not run by its own weight, and she had to thrust it out foot by foot, standing on the bed and leaning her bosom against the wall. The rope tightened, the knot straining at the bar. Then a shadow blotted out the window. “Dear heart!” She stretched out her hands to him, and then drew them with a sharp sob into her bosom, bending down her head and feeling the old despair taking possession of her heart. “Barbe!” He had forced himself into the stone framing of the window, and she could hear him breathing hard with the grimness of the climb. “Where are you, child?” He lay there with his face to the bars, and heard nothing but sudden passionate weeping. The sound of it went through him to the heart. He stretched out an arm and was able to touch her hair. “Dear heart, what is it?” She shivered and drew away. “You should not have come—” “No, no.” “John, you should not—” “My life, child—come, speak to me—I cannot bear to hear you weep.” She knew that he was trying to touch her, to be nearer to her, even with all the deep tenderness of his manhood. It was so easy and yet so difficult, so sweet and yet so full of torment. She felt that she could not bear out against him; and yet—how could she tell? He spoke again. “Barbara!” And then: “Dear heart, do you not trust me?” Something seemed to break within her, and she thrust up her hands to him with a cry as of one drowning. “John, I am afraid! John, I am afraid!”