There was silence between the three for several seconds. Then Barbara looked at John Gore and he at her.
“We have buried the past,” she said, turning to my lord.
Stephen Gore did not move.
“John and I are man and wife. We have put the past away from us. It is better for us—and for the dead.”
My lord raised his eyes slowly till they rested on Barbara’s face. He saw nothing there but a mist of tenderness and tears.
“Child, you say this to me?”
She held out her hands generously.
“Out of my heart I say it.”
My lord bowed himself and took her hands, and when he had kissed them he put them reverently away from him, and stood up bravely, yet with a twitching face. John Gore had come to stand beside his wife. And the three looked at each other and were silent.
Then my lord spoke.