He turned to the boy about to refuse the request; and then suddenly came another thought--she knew the danger as well as he! She knew what it meant to go beyond limits, and yet she had sent for him at this strange hour of the night, and for him, too, a comparative stranger. Surely, it must be a desperate matter, a matter in which to fail was sheer cowardice. At the same time with the thought there rose up before him a vision of a certain very sweet and winsome face; and when he spoke to the boy his answer was: