There was a stone bench at the western end of the yew alley, and Barbara, leaving Sparkin skied by his own conceit, walked on and sat down on the bench, knowing that the best way to hurt a boy is to ignore him. But Sparkin was out on no vainglorious adventure. He had nearly been tempted to interest himself in his master’s affairs, for it was a new experience for the youngster to watch this king of the quarter-deck dipping his flag to a thing in a petticoat. Therefore, Sparkin came scuffling down the tree as soon as he discovered that his ambuscade had failed, and, pushing his way between the yews and a high brick wall, disappeared in the direction of the house. Making a bolt for the doorway leading into the tennis-court, he ran full tilt into a gentleman as he rounded the corner, and that gentleman being none other than Captain Gore himself, he took Master Sparkin playfully by the ear, concluding that the boy had been in mischief, and that vengeance in some shape or form followed at his heels. “Hallo! what are you running for?” Sparkin had no excuse for the moment. It would have been useless to explain that he preferred the more vigorous form of exercise. “I met Mistress Barbara in the yew walk, captain.” His innocence was sublime. What earthly interest could John Gore take in such a coincidence? “I was birds’-nesting, and I thought it would be good manners to run away.” John Gore maintained his hold on Sparkin’s ear, and looked down at him with shrewd amusement. Then he gave him a fillip, and a gesture in the direction of the house, a hint that the boy had the wisdom to accept as final. The stone bench in the yew walk was set forward a little from the trunks of the trees, and John Gore, as he entered the alley, saw the girl’s figure outlined against the gold of the western sky. This tunnel of shadows seemed to him to lead toward mystery and desire. The figure at the end thereof remained motionless as a statue in black marble set before the entrance to a shrine. She did not wake to his presence till he was quite near to her, with the sun shining upon his face, and upon the new coat of scarlet cloth that he wore. There may have been some symbolism in the very color of the cloth. The simple richness of it suited his brown skin and the swarthy strength of his clean-shaven face. “Oh, is it you!” “You were tired of watching grown men playing with a ball?” “Perhaps I had other things to think of.” She moved aside and gathered up her dress so that there was ample room for him upon the bench. Yet, though it was done coldly, imperturbably, without a glimmer of a smile, the man whom she had sworn to kill suspected nothing but habitual melancholy. “Your boy was here a minute or two ago.” “Sparkin? I caught him on the run, and gave him a tweak of the ear to last for a week.” “The child seems very fond of you.” “Perhaps because I have never spared the rope’s-end when necessary, and perhaps because he has never caught me lying.”