The speaker of these strange words took a step forward. For a moment the two stood opposite one another. The man Barbara loved was a brave man, but he quailed before the other's eyes. "I have now told you what I came to say. Of late you seem to have become very intimate with Mrs. Rebell, and I wish to warn you that the day may come when I shall require your good offices. Good-night,"--and without offering to shake hands with Berwick, Boringdon turned on his heel and left the room. CHAPTER XX. "Shall I to Honour or to Love give way? * * * * * For, as bright day, with black approach of night, Contending makes a doubtful puzzling light, So does my Honour and my Love together Puzzle me so I can decide on neither." SPENSER. As time went on, as harsh winter turned into soft spring, Boringdon tried to assure himself that his conversation with Berwick had achieved all that he had hoped. James Berwick was certainly less often at the Priory, but this was doubtless owing in a measure to the fact that he had to be constantly in London, attending to his Parliamentary duties. Even now he was far more frequently at Chancton than he had been the year before, and Oliver was still jealous, sometimes intolerably so, for some subtle instinct told him that he was on a very different footing with Mrs. Rebell from that on which she stood with Berwick. As to his own relation with the man with whom his intimacy had once been so close, it had become, since their conversation, that of mere formal acquaintance. Mrs. Boringdon felt sure there had been a quarrel, but she was afraid to ask, so taciturn, so unapproachable, had her son become. Oliver had one subject of consolation. To the amazement of those about her, with the exception perhaps of Doctor McKirdy, the paralysed mistress of the Priory now caused herself to be moved down each day to the Blue drawing-room, and this, as Boringdon of course realised, made it very difficult for James Berwick, when at Chancton, to see much of Mrs. Rebell alone. * * * * * And Barbara? To her, as to Berwick, the weeks which had immediately followed the fire had been a time of deep content and tranquil happiness. She was well aware that there must come a day of painful reckoning; but, unlike Berwick, she put off the evil moment of making up her mind as to what form that reckoning would take.