“Borrowed?”
“I came home from sea with one shirt, one coat, and the other part of me in like proportion. My father’s wardrobe came to the rescue.”
“Then the cloak was my Lord Gore’s?”
“Yes; and his man probably stole the chain and sold it.”
He laughed; but on looking up at her again a silent, questioning wonder swept the lighter lines aside. She was standing motionless behind the table, her hands fixed upon the edge thereof, her eyes staring at nothing like the eyes of one in a trance. Yet even as he looked at her a great spasm of emotion seemed to sweep across her face. She turned without a word to him and fled out of the room.
John Gore found himself looking at the table behind which she had stood and at the sword that lay unsheathed thereon. The inexplicable swiftness of her mood went utterly beyond him, save that the words my lord had spoken flashed up like letters of fire upon the wall.
He rose and went to the door of the music-room, moving slowly as one weighted with thoughts that bear heavily upon the heart. The garden was empty, save for its closely clipped bays. Like some wayward cloud-shadow she had passed it and was gone.
But Barbara had fled to her room with a tumult of deep feeling within her heart. It was as though something had broken within her brain, letting forth infinite tenderness that welled up into poignant tears.
She went in and fell on her knees beside her bed. And if her heart found utterance it was in the one short cry: “Thank God!”