I don't sleep. I lie for
hours, listening to the fighting. It--it's more than I can bear."
Her voice quivered, and she turned her face aside, unable to hide her
emotion, but furious with herself for displaying it.

Nick said nothing at all to comfort her, and she bitterly resented
his silence. After a pause he spoke again, as if he had banished the
matter entirely from his mind.

"Look here," he said. "I want you to tell me something. I don't know
what sort of a fellow you think I am, though I fancy you don't like
me much. But you're not afraid of me, are you? You know I'm to be
trusted?"

It was her single chance of revenge, and she took it. "I have my
father's word for it," she said.

He nodded thoughtfully as if unaware of the thrust. "Yes, your father
knows me. And so"--he smiled at her suddenly--"you are ready to trust
me on his recommendation? You are ready to follow me blindfold through
danger if I give you my hand to hold?"

She felt a sharp chill strike her heart. What was it he was asking of
her? What did those words of his portend?

"I don't know," she said. "I don't see that it makes much difference
how I feel."

"Well, it does," he assured her. "And that is exactly what I have
come to talk about. Miss Roscoe, will you leave the fort with me,
and escape in disguise? I have thought it all out, and it can be done
without much difficulty. I do not need to tell you that the idea has
your father's full approval."

They were her father's own words, but at sound of them she shrank
and shivered, in sheer horror at the coolness with which they were
uttered. He might have been asking her to stroll with him in the leafy
quiet of some English lane.

Could it be, she asked herself incredulously, could it be that her
father had ever sanctioned and approved so ghastly a risk for her? She
put her hand to her temples. Her brain was reeling. How could she do
this thing? How could she have permitted it to be even suggested to
her? And then, swift through her tortured mind flashed his words:
"There will be an end. I have had to face it to-night." Was it this
that he had meant? Was it for this that he had been preparing her?

With a muffled exclamation she rose, trembling in every limb. "I
can't!" she cried piteously, "oh, I can't! Please go away!"

It might have been the frightened prayer of a child, so beseeching
was it, so full of weakness. But Nick Ratcliffe heard it unmoved. He
waited a few seconds till she