“Where is Cornelia, Barbara?”

“I have just come in,” was Barbara’s reply.  “I dare say she is following me.”

So she was, for she entered a moment after, her voice raised in anger at the gardener, who had disobeyed her orders, and obeyed the wishes of Lady Isabel.

The evening wore on to ten, and as the time-piece struck the hour, Barbara rose from her chair in amazement.

“I did not think it was so late.  Surely some one must have come for me.”

“I will inquire,” was Lady Isabel’s answer, and Mr. Carlyle touched the bell.  No one had come for Miss Hare.

“Then I fear I must trouble Peter,” cried Barbara.  “Mamma may be gone to rest, tired, and papa must have forgotten me.  It would never do for me to get locked out,” she gaily added.

“As you were one night before,” said Mr. Carlyle, significantly.

He alluded to the night when Barbara was in the grove of trees with her unfortunate brother, and Mr. Hare was on the point, unconsciously, of locking her out.  She had given Mr. Carlyle the history, but its recollection now called up a smart pain, and a change passed over her face.

“Oh!  Don’t, Archibald,” she uttered, in the impulse of the moment; “don’t recall it.”

Isabel wondered.

“Can Peter take me?” continued Barbara.

“I had better take you,” said Mr. Carlyle.  “It is late.”

Barbara’s heart beat at the words; beat as she put her things on—­as she said good-night to Lady Isabel and Miss Carlyle; it beat to throbbing as she went out with him, and took his arm.  All just as it used to be—­only now that he was the husband of another.  Only!

It was a warm, lovely June night, not moonlight, but bright with its summer twilight.  They went down the park into the road, which they crossed, and soon came to a stile.  From that stile there led a path through the fields which would pass the back of Justice Hare’s.  Barbara stopped at it.

“Would you choose the field way to-night, Barbara?  The grass will be damp, and this is the longest way.”

“But we shall escape the dust of the road.”

“Oh, very well, if you prefer it.  It will not make three minutes’ difference.”

“He is very anxious to get home to her!” mentally exclaimed Barbara.  “I shall fly out upon him, presently, or my heart will burst.”

Mr. Carlyle crossed the stile, helped over Barbara, and then gave her his arm again.  He had taken her parasol, as he had taken it the last night they had walked together—­an elegant little parasol, this, of blue silk and white lace, and he did not switch the hedges with it.  That night was present to Barbara now, with all its words and its delusive hopes; terribly present to her was their bitter ending.

There are women of warm, impulsive temperaments who can scarcely help, in certain moments of highly wrought excitement, over-stepping the bounds of nature and decorum, and giving the reins to temper, tongue, and imagination—­making a scene, in short.  Barbara had been working herself into this state during the whole evening.  The affection of Isabel for her husband, her voice, his caresses—­seen through the half open doors—­had maddened her.  She felt it impossible to restrain her excitement.