Robert Browning.

Within a week of her return to Chancton Priory, Barbara heard of Pedro Rebell's serious condition. A short, dry note from Andrew Johnstone conveyed to her the fact that he was dying, and that, whether he lived a few weeks or a few months longer was in his own hands,—a question, however, only of time, and of a short time.

Berwick had judged truly the woman he had grown to love with so intimate an understanding and sympathy. The news of approaching release let loose in Barbara's mind a flood of agonising memories, which crowded out for a while everything else. During the long years she had endured every humiliation such a man as Pedro Rebell could inflict on so proud, and so sensitive a human being as herself, she had never foreseen this way of escape. He had ever seemed instinct with a rather malignant vitality, and the young,—Barbara had remained in some ways very young after her marriage,—are not apt to take death into their calculations.

For some days she told none of those about her of the astounding news she had received from Santa Maria, but the two in whose thoughts she dwelt constantly divined her knowledge. It quickened Boringdon's desire to leave Chancton, and, with that self-delusion to which men who love are so often prone, in Mrs. Rebell's new coldness of manner to himself, he saw hope. Not so James Berwick,—he, judging more truly, was seized with a great fear lest Barbara should think it her duty to go back to Santa Maria. Rather than that, so he told himself during those days of strain and waiting for the confidence which she withheld, he would go himself,—men have gone stranger pilgrimages on behalf of their beloveds.

At last he told her that he knew what was so deeply troubling her. "And you are thinking," he said quietly, "that perhaps you ought to go back and look after him till the end? Is not that so?"

Barbara looked at him very piteously,—they were walking under the beeches, and, having wandered off the path, were now utterly alone. But, before she could speak, he again opened his lips: "If such action is necessary, if you do not think he will be well cared for by those about him, I will go for you."

"You?" Barbara's dark eyes dilated with sudden fear—"Oh! no, not you!——"

"Indeed, you could trust me to do all that was possible. You do not think, surely, that your actual presence would be welcome to him?" The words were uttered very quietly, but, as he asked the apparently indifferent question, Berwick clenched the stick he held with a nervous movement.

"No, I should not be personally welcome." Barbara spoke in a low voice, almost in a whisper; she felt it impossible to make those confidences regarding her life with Pedro Rebell which another woman would, perhaps, in her place, have been eager to make. And yet she longed to convey to Berwick how short-lived on his part had been the sudden attraction which had led this half-Spaniard to behave, in those sad weeks just before and after her father's death, so as to bring her to believe that marriage with him was the only way out of a difficult and undignified situation; how little, when once he was married to her, the man who was now dying had taken her into his scheming, vicious life.

But now she could say nothing of all this. And yet those few words with Berwick comforted her, and made her see more clearly, even gave her courage to telegraph to the Johnstones,—only to receive the decided answer that all that could be done was being done, and that her coming, from every point of view, was undesirable.

Then, and not till then, did Mrs. Rebell tell her god-mother the news which meant so much to her, indeed to them both.

Madame Sampiero made but one comment—"James Berwick must have known this before you went to France!"

Barbara bent forward to hear the quickly muttered words. The suggestion surprised her, perhaps troubled her a little. She hesitated,—but surely such knowledge could not have reached him before it reached herself, and so, "No—I do not think so," she said.

"Ah! well, I do think so——"

Madame Sampiero said no other word, but when her mind—that shrewd, acute mind, as keenly able to weigh actions and to judge those about her as ever it had been—pondered the confession Barbara had made to her immediately on her return from France, her heart grew very tender to James Berwick. She realised, what one who had been a better woman than herself would perhaps not have understood so well, the force of the temptation which must have assailed the man who loved Barbara with so jealous and instinctive a passion. At last, too, Madame Sampiero understood the riddle of Oliver Boringdon's sudden resignation of the conduct of her business. It must have been from him that Berwick had learnt that Mrs. Rebell was on the eve of becoming a free woman. But not even to Doctor McKirdy did the paralysed mistress of the Priory say what was in her mind; the old Scotchman divined that her view as to the danger of the relation of her god-daughter and Berwick had altered, and that the change had come about because of some confidence—or was it confession?—made by Barbara within a few hours of her return from Paris. Only Madame Sampiero,—and, long afterwards, Arabella Berwick,—ever knew of those three days spent by Berwick and Barbara at St. Germains.

The one person in Chancton, to whom Boringdon made any explanation concerning his resignation of the post he had now held for nearly two years, was Lucy Kemp. His mother told her many acquaintances that the public office her son had left to enter Parliament had found it quite impossible to carry on its portion of the nation's work without him, and that a very great inducement had been held out to him to persuade him to go back! But of these confidences of Mrs. Boringdon's he was happily ignorant, and to Lucy alone Oliver felt a longing to justify the future as well as the present.

Shortly, baldly, making no excuse for himself, unconsciously trusting to her sympathy, and to the instinctive understanding she had always shown where he and his feelings were concerned, he told her the truth, adding in conclusion: "You, now knowing her as you did not know her before the fire, can understand my——" he hesitated, then brought the words out with a certain effort,—"my love for her. I shall wait a year; I should not insult her by coming any sooner. I do not expect to be listened to—at first. She has suffered——" Again he stopped abruptly, then went on: "Lucy, do you think it strange that I should tell you all this?" And, as she shook her head, he added: "Lately she has seemed to avoid me,—that is, since her return from France, in fact since I know that my brother-in-law's letter must have reached her."

A sharp temptation assailed Lucy Kemp. Would it be so very wrong to break her promise to Mrs. Rebell,—that promise given so solemnly the night of the fire? Could she not say a word, only a word, indicating that he was making a terrible mistake? What hope could there be for Oliver Boringdon if Barbara loved James Berwick? But the girl fought down the longing, and Boringdon's next words showed her that perhaps he knew or guessed more than she had thought possible.

"Perhaps you have heard,—I know my mother has done so,—foolish gossip concerning Mrs. Rebell and James Berwick, but I can assure you that there is no truth in it. Berwick's financial condition makes it impossible that he should think of marriage." And, as something in Lucy's look or manner made him aware that she also had heard of, perhaps had noticed, the constant presence of Berwick at the Priory, Oliver bit his lip and went on, rather hurriedly: "I am not excusing him. I think his assumption of friendship with Mrs. Rebell has been regrettable. But, Lucy, I spoke to him about it, and though in doing so I lost his friendship, I am quite sure that it made a difference, and that it caused him to realise the harm he might be doing. In a country neighbourhood such as this, a man cannot be too careful." Oliver delivered himself of this maxim with considerable energy.

He seemed to be about to add something, then changed his mind. One further word, however, he did say:

"I wonder if you would let me write to you sometimes, and if Mrs. Kemp would mind your sometimes writing to me? In any case I hope my mother will hear from you."

And then, for a short space of time, a deep calm settled over Chancton. Berwick, who was staying at Fletchings, came almost daily, spending, 'tis true, long hours in Barbara's company, but treating her, during that strange interval of waiting, with a silent, unmaterial tenderness which moved and rather surprised those about them.

Barbara and her god-mother were in the Blue drawing-room, spending there, not unhappily, a solitary evening. Spring had suddenly become summer. It was so hot that the younger woman, when coming back from the dining-room, had left the doors deliberately wide open, but no sound came from the great hall and upper stories of the Priory.

Madame Sampiero preferred the twilight, and the two candles, placed far behind her couch, left her own still face and quivering lips in shadow, while casting a not unkindly light on her companion.

Barbara had been fanning the paralysed woman, but during the last few moments she had let the fan fall idly on her knee, and she was looking down with a look of gravity, almost of suffering, on her face. She was thinking, as she so often did think in these days, of Pedro Rebell, wondering if she ought to have gone back to Santa Maria as soon as she received Andrew Johnstone's letter. Had she believed that her presence would bring pleasure or consolation to the man who, she was told, was so soon to die, she might have found the strength to go to him,—her mother would have said that in any case her duty was to be there,—but then her mother had never come across, had never imagined—thank God that it was so!—such a man as her daughter had married. And so little does even the tenderest and most intelligent love bridge the gulf between any two of us, that Madame Sampiero, taking note of the downcast eyes, thought Barbara absorbed in some happy vision of dreams come true.

A good and noble deed, even if it takes the unusual form of supreme personal self-abnegation, often has a far-reaching effect, concealed, and that for ever, from the doer. How amazed James Berwick would have been to learn that one result of his renunciation had been to broaden, to sweeten Madame Sampiero's whole view of human nature! She realised, far more than Barbara Rebell could possibly do, the kind of heroism such conduct as that of Berwick had implied in such a nature as his, and she understood and foresaw its logical consequence—the altering, the reshaping in a material form, of the whole of his future life and career.

Sometimes, when gazing at her god-daughter with those penetrating blue eyes which had always been her greatest beauty, and which remained, in a peculiar pathetic sense, the windows of her soul and the interpreters of her inmost heart, the mistress of Chancton Priory wondered if Barbara was aware of what James Berwick had done, and of what he evidently meant to do, for her sake.

To-night these thoughts were specially present to Madame Sampiero; slowly, but very surely, she also was making up her mind to what would be, on her part, an act of supreme self-humiliation and renunciation.

"Barbara," she said, in the hoarse muffled tone of which the understanding was sometimes so difficult—"listen—" Mrs. Rebell started violently, the two words broke the silence which seemed to brood over the vast house. "I have determined to receive Julian—Lord Bosworth. You will prepare him"—she paused a moment, then concluded more indistinctly, "for the sight he is to see."

"But, Marraine, it is you he loves, and not—not——" Mrs. Rebell's voice was choked by tears. She slipped down on her knees, and laid her two hands on Madame Sampiero's stiff fingers, while she looked imploringly up into the still face.

Suddenly, as she knelt there, a slight sound fell on Barbara's ears; she knew it at once as that of the door, leading from the great hall to the vestibule, being quietly closed from the inside. A moment later there came the rhythmical thud of heavy footsteps making their way, under the music gallery, across to the staircase. A vague feeling of fear possessed the kneeling listener. Into her mind there flashed the thought that whoever had come in must have walked across the lawn very softly, also that the footfalls striking so distinctly on her ear were unfamiliar.

Then, in a moment, an amazing, and, to Barbara Rebell, a very awful thing took place. The stiff fingers she held so firmly slipped from her grasp, she felt a sudden sensation of void, and, looking up, she saw Madame Sampiero, drawn to her full height, standing by the empty couch. A moment later the tall figure was moving with steady swiftness towards the door which stood open at the other end of the long room—Barbara sprang up, and rushed forward; she was just in time to put her arms round her god-mother as Madame Sampiero suddenly swayed—wavered—

There was a moment of tense silence, for outside in the hall the heavy footsteps had stayed their progress—

"It is Julian." Madame Sampiero spoke quite distinctly, but she was leaning heavily, heavily, on her companion, and Barbara could feel the violent trembling of her emaciated body. "He used to come—in that way—long ago—He thinks I am upstairs. You must go and find him—"

To Barbara, looking back, as she often did look back during her later life, to that night, three things, in their due sequence, stood out clearly—the terrifying sight of the paralysed woman walking with such firm swift steps down the long room; the slow and fearful progress back to the couch; and then, her own fruitless, baffling search through the upper stories of the Priory—a search interrupted at intervals by the far-away, but oh! how clear and insistent voice, crying out "Barbara!" "Barbara!" a cry which, again and again, brought the seeker hurrying down, but with never a word of having found him whom she sought.

Doctor McKirdy, coming in as he always did come each evening, was the only human being to whom Mrs. Rebell ever told what had occurred; and she was indifferent to the knowledge that he discredited her statement as to how far Madame Sampiero had walked before she, Barbara, had caught the swaying figure in her arms. Would she herself have believed the story, had it been told her? No, for nothing could have convinced her of its truth but the evidence of her own eyes.

As was his way when what he judged to be serious illness or disturbance was in question, the old Scotchman was very silent, intent at first only on soothing his patient, and on having her transported upstairs as quickly and as quietly as possible. At last Barbara heard the words, "I promise ye most solemnly I will look mysel', but no doubt he's away by now, slipt out somehow"—uttered in the gentle voice he only kept for the woman to whom he was speaking, and which he rarely used even to her. And so, when Madame Sampiero was finally left with Jean—Jean, whose stern countenance showed no quiver of curiosity or surprise, though she must have known well enough that something very unusual had happened—Mrs. Rebell followed Doctor McKirdy downstairs.

"Then you do think it really was Lord Bosworth?" she asked rather eagerly.

"Indeed I do not!" he turned on her fiercely, "I just think it was nobody but your fancy!"

Barbara felt foolishly vexed.

"But, Doctor McKirdy, some man undoubtedly came in, and walked across the hall. We both heard him, quite distinctly."

"And of whom were ye thinking,—ay, and may-be talking,—when ye both heard this mysterious person?"

It was a random shot, but Barbara reddened and remained silent.

Doctor McKirdy, however, did not pursue his advantage. "Look ye here," he said, not unkindly, "try and get that notion out of her head, even if ye can't out of yours. If I thought he had come, that it was he"—he clenched his hands, "'Twould be a dastardly thing to do after what I've told him of her state! But, Mrs. Barbara, believe me, 'twas all fancy,"—he looked at her with an odd twisted smile, "I'll tell you something I've never told. Years ago, just after Madam's bad illness, I went away, more fool I, for what they call a change. Well, wherever I went they followed me—she and little Julia, as much there before me as you are now! 'Twas vain to reason with myself. Julia, poor bairn, was dead—who should know it as well as I?—and Madam lay stretched out here. And yet—well, since then I've known that seeing is not all believing. Once I got back,—to her, to them,—I laid their wraiths."

Barbara shuddered. "Then you are not going to look any more? I quite admit that whoever came in is probably gone away by now."

"Of course I'll make a round of the place. D'ye think I'd break my word in that fashion?"

Together they made a long and fruitless search through the vast old house, and up to the last moment Barbara thought it possible they might find someone in hiding, some poor foot-sore sailor tramp, may-be, who had wandered in, little knowing of the trouble he was bringing—but the long search yielded nothing.

"Are ye satisfied now?" Doctor McKirdy held up the hooded candle, and turned the light on her flushed, excited face.

"Yes!—no!—I mean that of course I know now there is no one in the house, but someone, a man, certainly came in."

For long hours Barbara lay awake, listening with beating heart for any unwonted sound, but none broke across the May night, and she fell asleep as the birds woke singing.

At eight in the morning LÉonie brought her a note just arrived from Fletchings: "Dearest,—Your kind heart will be grieved to learn that my uncle died, quite suddenly, last evening. I nearly came over, then thought it wisest to wait till the morning. Better perhaps make McKirdy break it to her."