“Hear them, John! I did not expect the rogues so early. Clear, my lad; I don’t want you caught in the tangle. Get behind some of yonder bushes.”
John Gore looked hard at his father.
“It is not your friends yet,” he said; “wait here; this is my affair.”
The sunlight shone on Barbara’s face as she met her husband in the court-yard. He said but one word—“Come”—and led her by the hand into the garden. A tangle of shrubs hid the place where Stephen Gore waited. And thus John Gore and Barbara came upon my lord quite suddenly, and stood before him almost like a pair of runaways returning for a father’s pardon.
My lord looked at Barbara and went white to the lips. His arms hung limply. He stooped, and seemed to shrink into himself, his eyes remaining fixed on her as though unable to look away. For the moment the old, frightened, fawning expression came back into his eyes. Then he gave a sudden, inarticulate cry, flung out his hands, and stood groping almost like one struck blind.
“John, you have deceived me!”
He would probably have fallen had not the son sprung to him and put an arm about his body.
“John, you have deceived me! My God, are you against me, even at the last!”
“No, no; it is not that.”
He glanced at Barbara, for Stephen Gore seemed in a kind of agony. He trembled greatly, leaned heavily upon his son, almost clinging to him as though stricken with the dread that he had been tricked and condemned even at the last by the one man whose love was the one thing left to him.