t door
was open, and a woman stood there in a dim shaft of candle-light
which streamed from the room beyond. He started, for he thought it
might be Charlotte; then he saw that it was Sylvia Crane leaning out
towards him, shading her eyes with her hand.

He said "Good-evening" vaguely, and passed on. Then he heard a cry of
indistinct words behind him, and turned. "What is it?" he called. But
still he could not understand what she said, her voice was so broken,
and he went back.

When he got quite close to the gate he understood. "You ain't goin'
past, Richard? You ain't goin' past, Richard?" Sylvia was wailing
over and over, clinging to the old gate-post.

Barney stood before her, hesitating. Sylvia reached out a hand
towards him, clutching piteously with pale fingers through the gloom.
Barney drew back from the poor hand. "I rather think--you've--made a
mistake," he faltered out.

"You ain't goin' past, Richard?" Sylvia wailed out again. She flung
out her lean arm farther towards him. Then she wavered. Barney
thought she was going to fall, and he stepped forward and caught
hold of her elbow. "I guess you don't feel well, do you, Miss Crane?"
he said. "I guess you had better go into the house, hadn't you?"

"I feel--kind of--bad--I--thought you was goin'--past," gasped
Sylvia. Barney supported her awkwardly into the house. At times she
leaned her whole trembling weight upon him, and then withdrew
herself, all unnerved as she was, with the inborn maiden reticence
which so many years had strengthened; once she pushed him from her,
then drooped upon his arm again, and all the time she kept moaning,
"I thought you was goin' right past, Richard, I thought you was goin'
right past."

And Barney kept repeating, "I guess you've made a mistake, Miss
Crane"; but she did not heed him.

When they were inside the parlor he shifted her weight gently on to
the sofa, and would have drawn off; but she clung to his arm, and it
seemed to him that he was forced to sit down beside her or be rough
with her. "I thought you was goin' right past, Richard," she said
again.

"I ain't Richard," said Barney; but she did not seem to hear him. She
looked straight in his face with a strange boldness, her body
inclined towards him, her head thrown back. Her thin, faded cheeks
were burning, her blue eyes eager, her lips twitching with pitiful
smiles. The room was dim with candle-light, but everything in it was
distinct, and Sylvia Crane, look