"Yes! Yes! Say yes! Tell me to go!" He caught her hand beseechingly. As their eyes gazed into each other's, hers suddenly filled and fell.
"Go," was her one soft word. But as he reached the door another stopped him:
"John——"
He turned and stood trembling from head to foot, his brow fretted with an agony of doubt. "Oh, Barbara Garnet!" he cried, "why did you say that?"
"Johanna told me," she murmured, smiling through her tears.
He started with half-lifted arms, but stopped, turned, and with a hand on his brow, sighed, "My mother!"
But a touch rested on his arm and a voice that was never in life to be strange to him again said, "If you don't say 'our mother,' I won't call you John any——"
Oh! Oh! Oh! men are so rough sometimes!