g low before her. I had told her enough
concerning him to prevent her welcome being warm. I would have told her
more, had she afforded me the opportunity. The imperfect knowledge that
she had caused her to accuse him rather of a timidity in face of
powerful rivals than of any deliberate design to set his love below his
ambition and to use her as his tool. Had she known all I knew she would
not have listened to him. Even now she made some pretext for declining
conversation that night and would have withdrawn at once; but he stayed
her retreat, earnestly praying her for her father's sake and her own to
hear his message, and asserting that she was in more danger than she was
aware of. Thus he persuaded her to be seated.

"What is your message from my father, my lord?" she asked coldly, but
not uncivilly.

"Madame, I have none," he answered with a bluntness not ill calculated.
"I used the excuse to gain admission, fearing that my own devotion to
you would not suffice, well as you know it. But although I have no
message, I think that you will have one soon. Nay, you must listen." For
she had risen.

"I listen, my lord, but I will listen standing."

"You're hard to me, Mistress Barbara," he said. "But take the tidings
how you will; only pay heed to them." He drew nearer to her and
continued, "To-morrow a message will come from your father. You have had
none for many days?"

"Alas, no," said she. "We were both on the road and could send no letter
to one another."

"To-morrow one comes. May I tell you what it will say?"

"How can you know what it will say, my lord?"

"I will stand by the event," said he sturdily. "The coming of the letter
will prove me right or wrong. It will bid your mother and you accompany
the messenger----"

"My mother cannot----"

"Or, if your mother cannot, you alone, with some waiting-woman, to
Dover."

"To Dover?" cried Barbara. "For what purpose?" She shrank away from him,
as though alarmed by the very name of the place whence she had escaped.

He looked full in her face and answered slowly and significantly:

"Madame goes back to France, and you are to go with her."

Barbara caught at a chair near her and sank into it. He stood over her
now, speaking quickly and urgently.

"You must listen," he said, "and lose no time in acting. A French
gentleman, by name M. de Fontelles, will be here to-morrow; he carries
your father's letter and is sent to bring you to Dover."

"My father bids