Barbara dismissed her maid quickly, almost impatiently, that night. She wanted to be alone. She expected to have done so much this evening, expected that she would have known her fate by now. She had faced the worst, she was prepared to pay the price, whatever it might be, always with a hope that it would not be as bad as she anticipated. Everything was yet to do, the uncertainty was still hers; the delay gave her lonely hours in which to realise all that this sacrifice might involve, and involuntarily she shrank from it. She was not less resolved, however, and there was an added incentive in the fact that the difficulties in her way were greater than she had expected. Sir John's arrival could have only one meaning; he must know, or had guessed, the real reason of Harriet Payne's coming to the Abbey, and had immediately travelled to town to ensure that, if he could possibly prevent it, no help should be given to Gilbert Crosby. His apology made no impression upon her, and she believed him capable of committing any villainy to get his own way. Surely, after what had happened at Aylingford, she had ample reason for her opinion. How was she to meet his designs and defeat them? There was only one way, the full sacrifice of herself. She looked critically at herself in the mirror, dashed the tears from her eyes, and smiled, touched her hair that the curls might fall most becomingly, and turned her head this way and that, coquetting with her own reflection. "Can I smile so winningly that a man will think possession of me cheaply bought at any price?" she murmured. "I think so, I believe so. I will make the bargain. Whatever beauty I have shall be staked against your villainy, Sir John; and I think the woman will win." She was strong in her determination, yet she sobbed herself to sleep.