"Do ye wish to hear the rest?" he said, rather sharply, "'Twas put in against my will and conscience, for 'tis false--false!" She bent her head, and he read on, "Now, only thy mother remembers that thou wast." Barbara looked up, questions trembling on her lips, but her eyes dropped as they met his. "Madam would have her put here," he said; "Julia's garden,--that's what we used to call it, and that is what it still is, for here she lies,--coffinless." Again he pointed to the last line, "Madam ought not to have had that added when there's not a man or woman about the place who's forgotten the child! But beyond the walls,--ah! well, who knows what is remembered beyond the walls?" "What do you mean?" asked Barbara in a low tone; out of the past she was remembering a June day at St. Germains. What had she been promised?--ah, yes! "the sweetest of playfellows." "Well, I was just meaning that Madam, when she made us put in those words, was thinking may-be of some who do not belong to the Priory, who live beyond the walls. I make no doubt that those folk have no time to cast their minds back so far as to remember little Julia." He turned sharply round and walked as if in haste through the garden, his head thrust forward, his hands clasped behind his back, in what Barbara already knew to be his favourite attitude. Once outside the gate, Doctor McKirdy looked long, first towards the Priory, then down the broad grass drive. "And now," he said briskly, "let's get away to the downs,--there's more air out there than here!" * * * * * The road leading from the Priory gates to the open downs lay along a western curve of country-side, and was over-arched by great elms. To the west Mrs. Rebell caught glimpses of a wide plain verging towards the sea, and in the clear autumn air every tree and bush flamed with glory of gold and russet. As they walked along the white chalky ridged cart track, the doctor looked kindly enough at the woman by his side. She was not beautiful as had been her mother, and yet he saw that her features were very perfect, and that health,--perfect recovery from what had evidently been a bad illness,--might give her the bloom, the radiance, which were now lacking. The old Scotchman also told himself with satisfaction that she was intelligent--probably cultivated. With the one supreme exception of Madame Sampiero, Doctor McKirdy had had very little to do with intelligent women; but Barbara, from her way of listening to his stories of Chancton Priory, from her questions and her answers, had proved--or so thought the doctor--that she was one of the very few members of her sex who take the trouble to think for themselves. "I suppose Mr. Sampiero is dead?" Never was man more unpleasantly roused from an agreeable train of thought. "He was dead last time we heard of him, but that happened once before, and then he came to life again--and most inopportunely."