"Mr Dale," said she, drawing herself up, "will not fear to meet you."
Again Fontelles bowed, turned, and was gone, swiftly and eagerly striding down the avenue, bent on finding me.
Barbara was left alone with Carford. His heavy frown and surly eyes accused her. She had no mind to accept the part of the guilty.
"Well, my lord," she said, "have you told this M. de Fontelles what honest folk would think of him and his errand?"
"I believe him to be honest," answered Carford.
"You live the quieter for your belief!" she cried contemptuously.
"I live the less quiet for what I have seen just now," he retorted.
There was a silence. Barbara stood with heaving breast, he opposite to her, still and sullen. She looked long at him, but at last seemed not to see him; then she spoke in soft tones, not as though to him, but rather in an answer to her own heart, whose cry could go no more unheeded. Her eyes grew soft and veiled in a mist of tears that did not fall. (So I see it—she told me no more than that she was near crying.)
"I couldn't send for him," she murmured. "I wouldn't send for him. But now he will come, yes, he'll come now."