Love again--warm, tender, passionate love--had linked together Lord Bosworth and Barbara Sampiero for so many years, and had found expression in their child. Thinking of those last two, Barbara lay and trembled. Bitter words of condemnation uttered by her father leapt from the storehouse of memory, as did the fact that her mother had once implied to her that but for Madame Sampiero, but for something--was it something wrong, or merely selfish and unwise which she had done?--Barbara's father might have returned in time to England and made some attempt to rehabilitate himself. * * * * * The maid who brought in her cup of tea in the morning laid a parcel down on Barbara's bed. It was a book wrapped in brown paper, and fully addressed to her with the superscription:-- "DEAR MRS. REBELL,--Here is the book I promised to send you. "Yours truly, "JAMES BERWICK." Some instinct made her wait till she was alone. Then, opening the parcel, she saw that, with the volume of Jacobite songs Berwick had indeed promised to give her, was a large envelope marked "private." From it she drew out slowly some twenty sheets or more, closely covered with the as yet unfamiliar writing of the man she loved. To the end of her life Barbara could have repeated portions of this, her first love letter, by heart, and yet, before going downstairs, she burnt each separate sheet. Over the last she hesitated. Indeed, she cut out the three words, "my heart's darling." But the little gilt scissors had belonged to her mother--how would her mother have judged what she was now doing?--and the slip of paper went into the fire with the rest. CHAPTER XVI. "He smarteth most who hides his smart And sues for no compassion." RALEIGH. "Would you mind taking me with you to church this morning? Miss Berwick tells me that her uncle won't be shocked." When Mrs. Rebell made her request, Daniel O'Flaherty was walking up and down the small hall, waiting for the carriage in which he was to drive that Sunday morning to the nearest Roman Catholic chapel. He had shared with the two ladies a comparatively early breakfast, for the service he was to attend took place at ten. "Yes, of course," he said, rather awkwardly, "I shall be very glad of your company, but I'm afraid you won't be comfortable, for Mass is said, it seems, in a little mission room." O'Flaherty had a vividly unpleasant recollection of the last time he had taken "a smart lady" to church. She had apparently expected to find a Notre Dame or Sistine Chapel in the wilds of Herefordshire, and she had been very much annoyed with the inartistic furnishings of the iron chapel. So it was that Mrs. Rebell's request fell disagreeably on his ear. * * * * *