"Oh, Barnabas," she whispered, "won't you--kiss
me--first?"
Then Barnabas trembled in his turn, the arm about her grew suddenly
rigid and, when he spoke, his voice was harsh and strained.
"Madam," said he, "can the mere kiss of an--inn-keeper's son restore
your dead faith?"
Now when he had said this, Cleone shrank in his embrace and uttered
a loud cry as if he had offered her some great wrong, and, breaking
from him, was gone before him up the stair, running in the dark.
Oh, Youth! Oh, Pride!
So Barnabas hurried after her and thus, as she threw open
Barrymaine's door he entered with her and, in his sudden abasement,
would have knelt to her, but Ronald Barrymaine had sprung up from
the couch and now leaned there, staring with dazed eyes like one new
wakened from sleep.
"Ronald," she cried, running to him, "I came as soon as I could, but
I didn't understand your letter. You wrote of some great danger. Oh,
Ronald dear, what is it--this time?"
"D-danger!" he repeated, and with the word, turned to stare over his
shoulder into the dingiest corner: "d-danger, yes, so I am,--but
t-tell me who it is--behind me, in the corner?"
"No one, Ronald.
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