"Chichester!" she repeated, incredulously. "Chichester!"
"A tall, slender, dark man, with a scar on his cheek," added Barnabas.
"Do you mean he was here--here to meet me--alone?"
Now, at this she seemed to shrink into herself; and, all at once,
sank down, crouching upon her knees, and hid her face from the moon.
"My lady!"
"Oh!" she sighed, "oh, that he should have come to this!"
"My Lady Cleone!" said Barnabas, and touched her very gently.
"And you--you!" she cried, shuddering away from him, "you thought me
what--he would have made me! You thought I--Oh, shame! Ah, don't
touch me!"
But Barnabas stooped and caught her hands, and sank upon his knees,
and thus, as they knelt together in the moonlight, he drew her so
that she must needs let him see her face.
"My lady," said he, very reverently, "my thought of you is this, that,
if such great honor may be mine, I will marry you--to-night."
But hereupon, with her two hands still prisoned in his, and with the
tears yet thick upon her lashes, she threw back her head, and
laughed with her eyes staring into his. Thereat Barnabas frowned
blackly, and dropped her hands, then caught her suddenly in his long
arms, and held her close.
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