"They have grown up to take our places indeed," I said. "The new Barbara rises up in your image, to find herself hopelessly in love with a boy who may be something like myself twenty years ago; like myself, the boy has no chance, from a worldly point of view. Some strange fate has cast us up here together, like ghosts out of the past, and it is for us to help them. That will be beautiful, Barbara, because in doing that we may mend that broken love story that was our own." "I have thought of that, too," she replied. We had risen to our feet, and she was looking at me earnestly. "I saw Barbara go away to-night with a strange man: I was watching in the garden. She went reluctantly; I heard her question him as to whether he was sure of this and that. Tell me what it meant." "Danger for her--ruin for her, unless she can be found," I replied. Then I told her rapidly of all that had happened that night, and of the plot that was afoot. She listened eagerly, questioning me on this detail and on that, speaking especially about the boy, and what attitude he would take in the business. "Don't you see, Barbara," I exclaimed in a whisper--"don't you understand that he sets his feet to-night absolutely in the footmarks that were mine twenty years ago?" "What do you mean?" she asked quickly, catching at my arm. "Barbara, I set out twenty years ago to make a man eat his words, or to kill the lie that he had told about you. To-night this boy sets out on the same errand, with a new Barbara--your child--to inspire him. She is to him as pure and precious a thing as you were to me all those years ago. If he finds the man, he will strike him down, as I struck down Gavin Hockley; he will suffer as I suffered--although they may be more merciful in his case, and may take his life. Think of it!" I cried, wringing my hands as I stood there, bareheaded, trembling and helpless in the winter night--"think of it! I can do nothing, because I have no money and no strength left; you can do nothing, because you died to the world years ago, and at the best, even though you lived, you are poor and helpless as I am. While we stand here--two poor ghosts come back out of the world that is dead--this boy and girl take up the tale, and rush straight to disaster, just as we did."