He was bending forward and looking at her with an intentness that betrayed his ignorance that she had him at a disadvantage, in that he saw only the curve of a cheek, while Barbara had everything before her. His elbows were on his knees, his hands knitted together between them, his sword lying on the window-seat, the scarf a knot of brilliant color like a great red rose. He was a man in whom even a child would have found great strength, and a kind of quiet sternness that mellowed when he smiled. John Gore had come to her to say good-bye, and she knew the meaning of his coming, the meaning that had come kindling in those eyes of his since the duel that wet night in June. It was a mere man’s trick to be near her, and to turn a month’s absence to the service of the heart. And they were alone together in that room where she had found her father dead—the room that might prove an altar of sacrifice. Barbara’s white face seemed near to tragedy as she gazed steadily into the mirror on the wall. Every fibre of her heart had been strung to a tenseness that made each heart-beat hard and perceptible. She had put pity from her with the dry cold eyes of a fatalist and the fierce apathy of one driven onward by force of fate. She had faltered too long, clung too treacherously to an incredulous caution. Life had become a dull misery for her, full of infinite doubt and sudden passionate impulses that carried her to the edge of the unknown. Only to grasp the truth, to tear aside the veil of sentiment, to end the uncertainty of it, even if it should be forever! Her heart was emptying of the power to hate. She had begun to distrust herself. She had to scourge herself with memories, as a fanatic uses a knotted whip upon the flesh. “Is that the end?” The silence had seemed a silence of hours instead of moments, and she started at the sound of his voice, pressing a hand over her bosom with an involuntary spasm of swift consciousness. She was wearing a loose gown with a mass of lace over the breasts. There was something more tangible hidden there than a memory. “I have no voice to sing; I shall only remind you of a missel-thrush.” “But the harpsichord?” “The notes are all harsh and the wires rusty.” She glanced at the mirror and saw the same intentness in his eyes. “Then you do not play often?” “No.” “Why not?” “My mother is no music-lover. And my fingers have grown stiff.” “Why should that have been?” “I have hardly touched the key-board since—my father died.” She watched him in the mirror, but he did not change his posture or betray anything upon his face. It seemed stern, and a little sad, the face of a man with depths beneath a surface of reserve. “I can understand that—in measure.” His voice struck a chord in her, as a voice that sings may set a wire vibrating. “It was here—in this room.” “Here?” “Yes. It was I who found him. His hands had touched these notes the day before. He had sung the song that I have played to you.”