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 word, to give me your word as a gentleman that you will make no use of what I shall tell—unless I allow you."

Barney felt his pulses pounding again; Mrs. Wain knew nothing more of Ethel; but evidently some other event mightily affected her and would affect him. "What is it?" he demanded.

"Your word, sir, or I can do nothing. I can not take you to her. You may never see her—alive!"

"Her?" said Barney, rising. "See whom? Who are you talking about?"

"I cannot tell you that, Mr.—Mr.—" she stammered; yet Barney knew that she had not forgotten his name. Rather he understood that now, for some reason, she would not address him, as previously she had, by that name which long ago he had given himself. "For I do not know what is to happen, sir! If she dies—"

"Not Ethel Carew!" He did not think that; yet he had to wholly dismiss it from his mind.

"No! She—if she dies, then of course I will tell you everything—I mean, sir, the little that I know. But if she does not die, you must know nothing of what you see this day. She would never forgive me, you see; she trusted me and—" the housekeeper broke off in dismay.

Barney seemed stifled and cramped as he stood there staring down at Mrs. Wain. Flashes of blood alternated with paleness in her thin cheeks and on her forehead, and her trembling and her frightened eyes appealed to him piteously. He was not conscious of purpose other than reaction to the stifling sensation of inaction when he moved away and into the next room where was the picture of Mrs. Oliver Cullen before