For though my Lord Gore had fallen back against the table with a great black blur on his blue coat and the lace thereof smouldering, he stood unhurt, with my lady holding to one arm and looking up with terror into his face.
“Safe, Nan,” he said, very quietly, being a man of nerve and courage; “where the bullet went, God only knows!”
A gray fog came up before Barbara’s eyes. She stood like one dazed, yet feeling the warmth of Mrs. Jael’s bosom as the woman still clung to her. Then her muscles relaxed and her face fell forward on Mrs. Jael’s shoulder.
Stephen Gore put the mother aside, and, striding forward, thrust his hand into Barbara’s bosom. He drew out the second pistol, looked at it with a grim, inquiring smile, and then laid it upon the table.
“The child must be clean mad,” he said, with admirable self-control and a glance full of meaning at my lady and Mrs. Jael.
“Oh, the poor dear! oh, the poor dear! To raise her hand against such a gentleman without cause or quarrel! Her wits must have gone. I’ve feared it many weeks.”
Stephen Gore pondered a moment, looking at Barbara’s bowed head with a look that boded nothing good for her.
“Get her to her room, Nan. Keep the servants out of the way. We don’t want any pother over the child’s madness. Understand me there; for her sake we can hold our tongues.”
Mrs. Jael looked at him as though he were a saint.
My lady and the woman took Barbara by either arm. She lifted her head and looked for a moment at my lord, and then went with them meekly, as though dazed and without heart. Whispering together behind her back, they led her across the garden and up the staircase to her own room. When they had locked the door on her, Anne Purcell laid a hand on Mrs. Jael’s arm, and they went together into my lady’s chamber.
When Anne Purcell returned to the music-room she found my lord waiting for her there, walking to and fro with his hands behind his back and his handsome face lined and shadowed with thought. He looked up quickly when she entered, a look full of infinite meaning, as though he had felt a chill of loneliness and was glad that this woman shared with him what the future might convey.
He closed the door and casements carefully, after walking round the garden to see that no one was lurking there. Anne Purcell’s face still looked white and scared. The horror of a betrayal haunted her as she went to the window-seat, where the moonlight was already glimmering upon the glass.