"Sit down by me here on this bench," said Barbara, kindly. "I have no better seat to offer you. Sit down, old friend, and be calm as I am."
The old man obeyed her, and, lifting his haggard eyes to her face, gazed upon her with the helplessness of a child.
She had become almost calm: a gracious dew overspread her forehead and the light of a holy resolve shone in her eyes.
"I must tell you every thing," she said, "for after I am gone you will take my duties up and bear them forward for my sake."
"Speak on: I listen," answered the old man in a broken-hearted voice.
CHAPTER L.
BARBARA STAFFORD'S STORY.
Barbara Stafford covered her face with both hands, for a moment pressing her temples hard, as if she hoped thus to still the crowd of thoughts under which her brain struggled.
"Let me begin years back when you performed the marriage rite which has been the glory and bitterness of my life," she commenced at last, in a low, forced voice that betrayed the painful effort she was making. "My father was a proud man, as you know, but how much reason he had for this lofty ancestral pride no one on this side of the Atlantic ever guessed. He was, in fact, when we came to this country, the next heir to one of the richest earldoms in England—one of those few titles that fall alike to male and female heirs. My paternal grandmother was then living, and his near connection with her honors was but little known. After my mother's death—her maiden name was Barbara Stafford, that which I now bear as a disguise—we came to America, urged by curiosity to see a country so grand and wild, so full of wonderful promise.