Before her, on a fallen tree sat the dismallest figure of a man she had ever seen. Pale, emaciated, with haggard face half concealed by a tangle of matted hair, and clad in that most melancholy of apparels—soiled and tattered finery. His right arm hung limply at his side, a pistol in the hand. His head was bowed upon his breast, but even as Barbara looked, he raised it, and she marked his desperate glance, his eyes hardened in despair.
As she looked upon his face the beauty of the forest vanished, it showed but as a drear wilderness of thorn and bramble, a fit setting to the desperate figure of the man before her; even so does the sight of a drowned corpse rob the sea of all its glory.
The man raised his face for a minute to the heavens, as though he would fling a look of defiance at the pitiless gods; then slowly lifted the pistol in his hand and turned the muzzle towards his temple, curling his finger round the trigger.
Without thought of aught save that the deed must be prevented, Barbara did not pause to consider her best course of action; she sprang through the bushes and confronted the sufferer, holding out her hands entreatingly towards him, and, with a sudden flash of instinct, crying in half-pleading, half-commanding tones:
"Hold, sir, hold. I require your protection."
The man sprang to his feet, and stood for a moment staring in amazement at this unexpected apparition. Then he fell on his knees before her, his eyes fixed adoringly upon her eager face.
"Barbara," he whispered, "Barbara! You! You!"
It was the girl's turn to be astonished. She drew back a step, and regarded the speaker with a frown of bewilderment.
"Do you not know me, Barbara?" he whispered again. "You can't have forgotten me, Ralph Trevellyan."
"Ralph!" she cried in amazement. "Is it possible?" It was indeed difficult to recognise in this haggard figure the gay debonair youth she had known in former days, her brother's boon companion, and a favourite playmate of her childhood.