s voice, trembling with alarm or some other agitation which made
her tones quick and timid. I made no answer. The door opened a little
wider. I saw her face as she looked out, half-fearful, yet surely also
half-expectant. Much as I had desired her coming, I would willingly have
escaped now, for I did not know what to say to her. I had rehearsed my
speech a hundred times; the moment for its utterance found me dumb. Yet
the impulse I had felt was still on me, though it failed to give me
words.

"I thought it was you," she whispered. "Why are you there? Do you want
me?"

Lame and halting came my answer.

"I was only passing by on my way to bed," I stammered. "I'm sorry I
roused you."

"I wasn't asleep," said she. Then after a pause she added, "I--I thought
you had been there some time. Good-night."

She bade me good-night, but yet seemed to wait for me to speak; since I
was still silent she added, "Is our companion gone to bed?"

"Some little while back," said I. Then raising my eyes to her face, I
said, "I'm sorry that you don't sleep."

"Alas, we both have our sorrows," she returned with a doleful smile.
Again there was a pause.

"Good-night," said Barbara.

"Good-night," said I.

She drew back, the door closed, I was alone again in the passage.

Now if any man--nay, if every man--who reads my history, at this place
close the leaves on his thumb and call Simon Dale a fool, I will not
complain of him; but if he be moved to fling the book away for good and
all, not enduring more of such a fool as Simon Dale, why I will humbly
ask him if he hath never rehearsed brave speeches for his mistress's ear
and found himself tongue-tied in her presence? And if he hath, what did
he then? I wager that, while calling himself a dolt with most hearty
honesty, yet he set some of the blame on her shoulders, crying that he
would have spoken had she opened the way, that it was her reticence, her
distance, her coldness, which froze his eloquence; and that to any other
lady in the whole world he could have poured forth words so full of fire
that they must have inflamed her to a passion like to his own and burnt
down every barrier which parted her heart from his. Therefore at that
moment he searched for accusations against her, and found a
bitter-tasting comfort in every offence that she had given him, and made
treasure of any scornful speech, rescuing himself from the extreme of
foolishness by such excuse as harshness might affor