whatever.  He represented himself as so drearily lonely and friendless in this hard-hearted, thorny world.  Quite a little lamb was Silas, leaving shreds of his pure white wool rent off and clinging to the briars of his solitary life-journey.  He was very patient in his sufferings, he said, for he so keenly felt that coarser natures could not suffer as he did; that troubles glided from their backs like water from the feathers of the draggled but happy goose, whereas on his tender heart they struck deep like a fiery rain.  Was it not Danty who told of those poor people who were exposed to the molten drizzle?  Ah yes!  Danty knew, of course, for he had been a great sufferer.  What a beautiful, yet sad, word is that, “to suffer”!  How gentle and lovely to suffer without complaint!  Had the Countess ever thought of it?  To suffer silently—­and long—­(here Silas cast a love-sick glance out of his small dark eyes)—­with the hope of gaining an object infinitely far removed, but—­(another glance)—­infinitely beautiful and worth obtaining.  Oh!  Silas would suffer for ever in such a hope!  There was nothing Silas would not do that was saintly that he might gain heaven.

After a time, Margaret, who disliked this kind of talk intensely, began to look grave, an omen which Barker did not fail to interpret to his advantage, for it is a step gained when a woman begins to be serious.  Only a man ignorant of Margaret’s real character, and incapable of appreciating it, could have been so deceived in this case.  She had felt strongly that Barker had saved her life, and that he had acted with a boldness and determination on that occasion which would have merited her admiration even had it not commanded her gratitude.  But she was really grateful, and, wishing to show it, could devise no better plan than to receive his visits and to listen politely to his conversation.

One day, late in the afternoon, they were sitting together over a cup of tea, and Barker was pouring out his experiences, or what he was pleased to call by that name, for they were not genuine.  Not that his own existence would have been a dull or uninteresting chapter for a rainy afternoon, for Barker had led a stirring life of its kind.  But as it was necessary to strike the pathetic key, seeing that Claudius had the heroic symphony to himself, Barker embroidered skilfully a little picture in which he appeared more sinned against than sinning, inasmuch as he had been called upon to play the avenging angel.  He had succeeded, he admitted, in accomplishing his object, which in his opinion had been a justifiable one, but it had left a sore place in his heart, and he had never quite recovered from the pain it had given him to give so much pain—­wholesome pain indeed, but what of that?—­to another.

“It was in New York, some years ago,” he said.  “A friend of mine, such a dear good fellow, was very much in love with a reigning beauty, a Miss—­; well, you will guess the name.  She threw him over, after a three months’ engagement, in the most heartless manner, and he was so broken-hearted that he drank himself to death in six months at the club.  He died there one winter’s evening under very painful circumstances.”