"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. * * * * *