Then, greatly agitated, Barbara started up.
‘Oh, Mr. Jasper!’ she said with quivering voice, ‘what cruel words I have spoken to you—to you so generous, so true, so self-sacrificing! You never can forgive me; and yet from the depth of my heart I desire your pardon. Oh, Jasper! Mr.’—a sob broke the thread of her words—’Mr. Jasper, when you were ill and unconscious, I studied your face hour after hour, trying to read the evil story of your life there, and all I read was pure, and noble, and true. How can I make you amends for the wrong I have done you!’
As she stood, humbled, with heaving bosom and throat choking—Eve came with skips and laugh along the gravel walk. ‘I have found you!’ she exclaimed, and clapped her hands.
‘And I—and I——’ gasped Barbara—’I have found how I may reward the best of men. There! there!’ she said, clasping Eve’s hand and drawing her towards Jasper. ‘Take her! I have stood between you too long; but, on my honour, only because I thought you unworthy of her.’
She put Eve’s hand in that of Jasper, then before either had recovered from the surprise occasioned by her words and action, she walked back into the house, gravely, with erect head, dignified as ever.
[CHAPTER XXXVII.]
THE PIPE OF PEACE.
Barbara went to her room. She ran up the stairs: her stateliness was gone when she was out of sight. She bolted her door, threw herself on her knees beside her bed, and buried her face in the counterpane.
‘I am so happy!’ she said; but her happiness can hardly have been complete, for the bed vibrated under her weight—shook so much that it shook down a bunch of crimson carnations she had stuck under a sacred picture at the head of the bed, and the red flowers fell about her dark hair, and strewed themselves on the counterpane round her head. She did not see them. She did not feel them.