“Of course I’m sure,” Barney returned, impatiently.

“It would kill me if you were,” Rose whispered.  She pressed close to him; he could feel her softly panting against his side, her head sunk on his shoulder.  “I’ve been worrying about it all these months,” she said in his ear.  Her soft curly hair brushed his cheek, but her little transient influence over him was all gone.  He felt angry and ashamed.

“I haven’t thought anything about it,” he said, brusquely.

Rose sobbed faintly, but she did not move away from him.  Suddenly that cruel repulsion which seizes mankind towards reptiles and unsought love seized Barney.  He unclasped her clinging hands, and fairly pushed her away from him.  “Good-night, Rose,” he said, shortly, and turned, and went up the path to his own door with determined strides.

“Barney!” Rose called after him; but he paid no attention.  She even ran up the path after him; but the door shut, and she turned back.  She was trembling from head to foot, there was a great rushing in her ears; but she heard a quick light step behind her when she got out on the road, and she hurried on before it with a vague dread.

She almost ran at length; but the footsteps gained on her.  A dark skirt brushed her light-colored one, and Charlotte’s voice, full of contempt and indignation, said in her ear:  “Oh, I thought it was you.”

“I—­was coming up—­to your—­house,” Rose faltered; she could hardly get her breath to speak.

“Why didn’t you come, then?” demanded Charlotte.  “What made you go to Barney Thayer’s?”

“I didn’t,” said Rose, in feeble self-defence.  “He was out in the road—­I—­just stopped to—­speak to him—­”

“You were coming out of his yard,” Charlotte said, pitilessly.  “You followed him in there—­I saw you.  Shame on you!”

“Oh, Charlotte, I haven’t done anything out of the way,” pleaded Rose, weakly.

“You have tried your best to get Barney Thayer all the time you have been pretending to be such a good friend to me.  I don’t know what you call out of the way.”

“Charlotte, don’t—­I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have.  I am going to tell you, once for all, what I think of you.  You’ve been a false friend to me; and now when Barney don’t notice you, you follow him up as no girl that thought anything of herself would.  And you don’t even care anything for him; you haven’t even that for an excuse.”

“You don’t know but what I do!” Rose cried out, desperately.

“Yes, I do know.  If anybody else came along, you’d care for him just the same.”

“I shouldn’t—­Charlotte, I should never have thought of Barney if he—­hadn’t left you, you know I shouldn’t.”

“That’s no excuse,” said Charlotte, sternly.

“You said yourself he would never come back to you,” said Rose.

“Would you have liked me to have done so by you, if you had been in my place?”