[Illustration: BARBARA FELL BACK AGAINST THE WALL] MAD BARBARA BY WARWICK DEEPING AUTHOR OF “BERTRAND OF BRITTANY” “A WOMAN’S WAR” “THE SLANDERERS” ETC. ETC. WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY CHRISTOPHER CLARK, R. I. NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS MCMIX Copyright, 1908, by HARPER & BROTHERS. _All rights reserved._ Published February, 1909. MAD BARBARA I In the little music-house in his garden overlooking the Park of St. James’s, Sir Lionel Purcell—Knight—lay dead, with his cloak half thrown across his face and one hand still gripping the hilt of his sword. The door of the music-room stood ajar, giving a glimpse of the autumn garden, the grass silvered with heavy dew, yellow leaves flaking it, like splashes of gold on a green shield. The curtains were drawn across the windows, so that a few stray shafts of light alone streamed in, giving a sense of some mystery unrevealed as yet, some riddle of human passion waiting to be read. The silent room seemed all shadows, save where those Rembrandtesque strands of sunlight slanted upon the floor. And there, as though touched by light from another world, the dead man’s forehead gleamed out above the black folds of his cloak. His sword, a streak of silver, joined him to the surrounding shadows, a last bond between him and the past. Without—an autumn morning, with the clocks chiming the hour of six, and the water-fowl calling from the decoy in the park. A golden mist swimming in the east; the grass white with dew; the trees still sleeping, though the yellow leaves fell slowly, softly from the silent branches overhead. A virginal gray-eyed wonder in the eyes of the day. Freshness and fragrance everywhere, with the spires of Westminster striking upward into pearly haze, and the broad river catching the sunlight that sifted through the ragged vapor.