"Hush, hush!" she cried, looking round in fear lest already someone should have overheard. "I will do all I can." "Very good. Now, if you feel better, we will return to the drawing-room." At the door she laid her hand upon his shoulder. "One moment, Mr. Barton; you will keep this man--this shadow, as you call him--from doing harm?" "I will. He is as much my slave as you are." And Miriam, although she shuddered, did not dare to contradict him. She was indeed his slave. His whispered communication had given her no choice. Again, from that moment, poor Miriam had taken up her burden. For long after that, the impression left by this extraordinary interview was deep upon her. Circumstances altogether beyond her control compelled her to obey Barton; but she could by no means understand him. He puzzled her completely. She could not reconcile the man's wish to ruin Gerald with his apparently co-existent desire to give him a chance of escape from the trap prepared for him. It was so utterly inconsistent to her mind. She could only surmise that the man had a conscience, and that in this way he strove to quieten it. The desire for vicarious punishment which seemed to have taken possession of him was, to her thinking, as childish as it was reprehensible. She could not reconcile it with either a normal sense of morality or with sanity. It was no doubt a species of mania. Besides, in many other ways Barton's actions were such as to cast the gravest doubts as to his mental state. His behaviour became more and more perplexing, and his actions almost invariably baseless and inconsequent. And it was not until long after, when the skeins of the various lives with which her own had become entangled, began to unravel themselves, that she understood what was now perfectly inexplicable to her. Then, knowing what she knew, she was no longer surprised. "Wherever have you been, Miss Crane?" demanded Mrs. Darrow with some asperity, as she and the Squire entered. "Oh, she has been talking to me on a little matter of business," interrupted Barton before Miriam could reply. "It's all right, Julia, there is nothing for you to disturb yourself about." "Oh, really, I don't mind in the least," said Mrs. Darrow, seeing she had made a _faux pas_; "but now that Miss Crane has returned to us, perhaps she will be so good as to sing something?" Miriam's first impulse was to decline, for her interview with Barton had shaken her nerve a good deal. But she saw the sinister look of curiosity on Mrs. Darrow's face, and she determined she would give that lady no further ground for suspicion. "I will sing with pleasure," she said, moving towards the piano. "But I am afraid I have brought no music." "Oh, I saw to that," said Mrs. Darrow producing a roll. "I was quite sure Uncle Barton would like to hear your voice, so I brought a few of your songs for you." "A few of my songs?" repeated Miriam; "and where, pray, did you get them?"