Upon the panel of the upturned lid was a picture painted in an oval scroll of flowers, a sensuous scene from a _fête galante_ with men and women dancing and looking love. The colors and the gestures of each minute figure seemed to burn in upon the girl’s brain, as small things will when life hangs upon a look or upon a word. Barbara rose slowly, pushing the settle back, and gazing into the mirror at the man’s dark and thoughtful face. “It was some unknown sword that killed him.” She had turned, and his eyes met hers. “Nothing was ever discovered.” “Nothing?” “That was what seemed so strange.” She stood a moment gazing through the window at the flowers in the border, yet trying to penetrate by sheer instinct beyond the man’s quiet dignity. John Gore remembered his father’s innuendos. It had been a pitiable affair for an innocent girl. It would have been even more pitiable had she been confronted with what my lord had hinted to be the truth. “Does the thrust of a sword hurt? I have often wondered.” Her eyes were fixed upon him, as though she had discovered the slightest flicker of uneasiness, a length of silence that suggested premeditation. “Why think of such things?” “One cannot always help one’s thoughts; they come like the wind through the window.” John Gore leaned his head upon his hand, his fingers tugging at his hair, much like a school-boy baffled by a pile of figures. Man of action, and of the world that he was, his ways were often quaintly boyish. “There may be one pang, perhaps.” “The thought of steel in one’s body makes one shiver.” She seemed to persist in her morbid melancholy like one whose thoughts move in a circle. “Is that the sword with which you fought Lord Pembroke?” “That? Yes.” “Let me look at it. Strange that such bodkin can be so deadly.” He took it for a whim of hers, and humored her, hiding the pity in his eyes. “Why, it is not much heavier than a gentleman’s cane!” She held it in her two hands, balancing it, and looking at the silver work upon the sheath. John Gore watched her, grave-eyed and compassionate. “It is said that the sword suits itself to the age.” “Oh!” And she drew back innocently, step by step. “Broad and trenchant; slim and subtle.” “Then you would call this a sword for a treacherous hand?” “No, rather a tool for the man with a brain. Any fool can fight with a club.” She drew the blade sharply from the scabbard, still moving backward step by step till the table was between her and John Gore. “It was some such sword as this that killed my father.” “Perhaps.” He shirked the subject, as though afraid of paining her or abetting her in her distemper. “If I could only know the truth! The mystery of it haunts me.” She laid the sword upon the table, quite close to her hand, so that she could snatch at it if things came to such a pass. “Some parts of life are better forgotten.” “If we can forget.” A great impulse stirred in him, bidding him go to her and take her hands.