“How did you come by him?” “A mere chance. He was no man’s child—a kind of wild-cat that haunted the river-side and lived as best it could. It was before I sailed three years ago that I saw the youngster outside a Greenwich tavern. He was standing up in his rags to some big, well-conditioned bully of a school-boy, and thrashing him squarely by sheer pluck.” “That is how you became friends?” “I took him to sea with me, and grew fond of the youngster in spite of his insolence, which I chastened like a father. And the humor of it was that after pulling him out of a Greenwich gutter, the boy pulled a ship’s crew out of a Barbary prison. I have told you that tale before.” Barbara watched his face while he was speaking with an intentness that made him feel the nearness of her eyes. “A lucky day for the boy.” “And for me. We are more than quits. I am here in England.” And he glanced at her as though he had meant more than he had said. Barbara cherished her reserve. “It was in the autumn of 1675 that you sailed,” she said. “No, earlier than that.” “I remember the year well.” “It was in June, not in the autumn.” “I remember every month of that year, because it was the year that my father died.” She spoke calmly, yet he was startled by the expression of her face. It shone white in the half-gloom of the evening under the yews, the eyes gleaming out from it with a dull fire. “The month was June; I am sure of that.” “If you say it was June it must have been so. You should know.” Her wayward strangeness puzzled him. At times he was even tempted to believe that what my Lord Gore had hinted at might some day prove too true. The thought roused in him a shock of rebellion at the heart, and an instinct of strong tenderness that woke a longing to cherish and to protect. “Are you cold here? There is a mist beginning to rise from the river.” “They will be wondering what has become of us.” “Let them wonder. I will fetch you a cloak.” “No. Let us go in.” She shivered momentarily and rose from the bench, drawing a little away from him as they walked up the yew alley together. The east was full of a faint crimson splendor; the colder tints had not come as yet. Neither of them appeared to have a word to say. Yet the silence was tinged with a vague mystery that seemed to catch the spirit of the dying day. To John Gore it seemed that any memory of that fatal year chilled the girl like the breath of a raw November night. Barbara went to her room with a feeling of infinite loneliness weighing upon her heart, the loneliness of a gray twilight over a gray land. An utter dreariness dulled all feeling in her for the hour. Perfunctorily, almost blindly, she changed her dress, putting on something richer for the wax lights and the music in the state salon. A procession of dim thoughts moved slowly through her brain, their significance hurting her despite her obstinate self-will.