She shook her head, and Berwick, at last free to see the agony and surrender in the face into which he was looking down, and to which he suddenly felt his lips so near, was swept by an irresistible rush and mingling of feelings--remorse and fierce relief, shame and exultant joy.
"I think we ought to go downstairs,"--Arabella's clear voice broke into and echoed through the silent room.
Berwick straightened himself slowly. Before releasing Barbara's hands he kissed first one and then the other. As he did so, passion seemed to melt into tenderness. How fragile, how childish he had thought the fingers resting on his arm that first evening of their acquaintance! He remembered also the fluttering, the trembling of her ringless left hand when for a moment he had covered it with his own during that drive from Halnakeham to Chillingworth, when he had made so much--or was it so little?--of his opportunity.
The two walked down the gallery, towards O'Flaherty, who was still standing by the wood fire, and Arabella, who was putting out the candles with the rather disdainful thoroughness and care she gave to small household matters. Lord Bosworth's servants were old, like himself, and grew unmindful of their duties.
Berwick suddenly left Mrs. Rebell's side, but not till he had reached the door did he turn round and say, "I am not coming down, for I have work to do, so good-night!" A moment after, he was gone, with no more formal leave-taking.
That night Barbara cried herself to sleep, but to her tears brought no relief--rather an added shame for the weakness which made them flow so bitterly. She felt overwhelmed by a great calamity--face to face with a situation out of which she must herself, unaided, find an issue.
She had asked so little of the shattered broken life which remained to her--only quietude and the placid enjoyment of a friendship which had come to her unsought, and in which there could be no danger, whatever Madame Sampiero or Mrs. Turke might think. Did not the feeling which bound her to James Berwick enjoy the tacit approval of such a woman as was Arabella Berwick? What else had made Miss Berwick say to her, as she had done, that her brother could never marry? Surely the words had been uttered with intention, to show Mrs. Rebell how desirable it was that he should have--friends?