n't say he had told you to take
charge of the papers. Did he do that?"

"I thought that was implied. If you need them, I'll get them for you,
Don. Do you want them?"

She got up and went toward the safe where she had put them; suddenly
she stopped. What it was that she had felt under his tone and manner,
she could not tell; it was probably only irritation at having important
work taken out of his hands. But whatever it was, he was not openly
expressing it--he was even being careful that it should not be
expressed. And now suddenly, as he followed and came close behind her
and her mind went swiftly to her father lying helpless upstairs, and
her father's trust in her, she halted.

"We must ask Father first," she said.

"Ask him!" he ejaculated. "Why?"

She faced him uncertainly, not answering.

"That's rather ridiculous, Harry, especially as it is too late to ask
him to-night." His voice was suddenly rough in his irritation. "I
have had charge of those very things for years; they concern the
matters in which your father particularly confides in me. It is
impossible that he meant you to take them out of my hands like this.
He must have meant only that you were to give me what help you could
with them!"

She could not refute what he said; still, she hesitated.

"When did you find out those matters weren't in your safe, Don?" she
asked.

"Just now."

"Didn't you find out this afternoon--before dinner?"

"That's what I said--just now this afternoon, when I came back to the
house before dinner, as you say." Suddenly he seized both her hands,
drawing her to him and holding her in front of him. "Harry, don't you
see that you are putting me in a false position--wronging me? You are
acting as though you did not trust me!"

She drew away her hands. "I do trust you, Don; at least I have no
reason to distrust you. I only say we must ask Father."

"They're in your little safe?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"And you'll not give them to me?"

"No."

He stared angrily; then he shrugged and laughed and went back to his
desk and began gathering up his scattered papers. She stood
indecisively watching him. Suddenly he looked up, and she saw that he
had quite conquered his irritation, or at least had concealed it; his
concern now seemed to be only over his relations with herself.

"We've not quarreled, Harry?" he asked.

"Quarreled? Not at all, Don," she replied.

She moved toward the door; he followed