“I made a promise to myself that I would find out the man who killed my father. When I discovered it I bought these pistols.” My lady had risen from the window-seat and was standing with her arms spread, her open mouth a black oval, as though she were trying to speak and could not. “Mother, do not move. I will beseech my Lord of Gore to tell me the truth before I pull the trigger.” The great gentleman looked at her like a man dumfounded, hardly able to grasp the meaning of that steel barrel and that little circle of shadow that held death in the compass of a thumb’s nail. “Assuredly I will tell you the truth,” he said, at last. “Then let me hear it.” He grappled himself together, gave a glance at my lady, who had sunk again into the window-seat, and then met Barbara eye to eye. “Since you seek the truth at the pistol’s point, my child, I will tell it you, though no man on earth should have dragged it from me at the sword’s point. Good God!” And he put his hand to his forehead and looked from mother to daughter as though unwilling to speak, even under such compulsion. Barbara watched him, believing he was gaining leisure to elaborate some lie. “You are determined to hear everything?” She nodded. “Have it then, girl, to your eternal shame! Why should the unclean, disloyal dead make the living suffer? Much good may the truth do all of us, for none are without our sins.” He spoke out in a few harsh, solemn words—words that were meant to carry the sorrow and the travail and the anger of a great heart. It was the same tale that he had told John Gore, yet emphasized more grimly to suit the moment. And when he had ended it he put his head between his hands and groaned, and then looked up at Barbara as though trying to pity her for the shock of his confession. “Is that everything?” She was white and implacable. My lord’s lower lip drooped a little. “Is it not enough?” “Of lies—yes.” He looked in her eyes, and then gave a deep, fierce cry, like the cry of a wild beast taken in the toils. It was done within a flash, before he could cross the space that parted them. He stumbled against the chain that she had thrown down toward him. And as the echoes sped, and the smoke and the draught made the candles flicker, Barbara fell back against the wall, her hand dropping the pistol and going to her bosom for the consummation of it all. “Mercy of me, my dear, mercy of me, what have you done?” She found Mrs. Jael clinging to her and holding her arms with all her strength. Barbara tried to shake the woman off, but could not for the moment. Then, quite suddenly, as the smoke cleared, she ceased her striving and leaned against the wall, her eyes staring incredulously over Mrs. Jael’s head as the little woman clung to her and pinioned her with her arms.