“Barbara, this man”--he paused to look down while he fingered one of her rings--“is an impostor. But if he were not, would you--would you--still wish him dead?” She looked around at him in surprise. “Why, what--’tis a strange question. Is there a chance that it is true--that he is what he says?” He halted at this abrupt questioning and did not meet her eye. “No, Barbara, I have not said so. But suppose he were the real Vicomte de Bresac, would you still wish him dead?” It was her turn to be discomfited. She averted her head, and her eyes moved restlessly from one object upon the table to another. “Have I not told you that I hate him?” she said; the voice was almost a whisper. Ferrers looked at her as though he would read the inmost depths of her heart. She met his eyes a moment and then smiled with a little bitter irony that had a touch of melancholy in it. “Can I find it pleasant thinking,” she went on, “that the houses, the lands, the people who owe me allegiance, my goods, my habits, my very life, are not mine, but another’s?” A look of satisfaction crossed Captain Ferrers’s face. He relinquished her hand and arose. “What nonsense is this, Barbara, to be bothering your pretty head about such a matter! Zounds, dear lady, it is the silliest thing imaginable!” “Nay,” she said, with a gesture of annoyance and a woful look that was only half assumed--“nay, it is no nonsense or silliness. Should Monsieur Mornay come back, my quandary becomes as grievous as ever.” Ferrers had been pacing up and down, his hands behind his back. “He will not come back. Besides, what could he prove?” He stopped before her. She did not answer, but, trembling, waited for him to continue. “Listen, Barbara. There has been something I have had in my mind to tell you. The Frenchman’s story has made some impression upon you.” She looked up almost plaintively. “How could it fail?” Then she went on, for his encouragement: “It would make no difference to me whether he is the heir or no. So why should it make a difference to you?” “That decides me. The fellow is gone forever. He will never cross your path again. You think your quandary is grievous. Even if the fellow came back, what could he prove? Nothing. I will tell you why. Because the only proofs of another heir to the estate are in my possession.” It was out at last. The thing she half hoped yet most dreaded to hear rang in her ears. She got up, making no effort to conceal her emotion, and, walking to a window, leaned heavily upon the back of a chair. “The proof--the papers--are in your possession?” And then, with an attempt at gayety which rang somewhat discordantly, “’Tis fortunate that they still remain in the hands of my friends.”