Presently it grew dusky, and the glowing apples faded; the town-clock struck eight.  Barney counted the strokes; then he arose and went slowly back.  He had not gone far when he saw at a distance down the road a man and woman strolling slowly towards him.  They disappeared suddenly, and he thought they had turned into a lane which opened upon the road just there.  He thought to himself, and with no concern, that it might have been his sister Rebecca—­something about the woman’s gait suggested her—­and William Berry.  He knew that William was not allowed in his mother’s house, and that he and Rebecca met outside.  He looked up the dusky lane when he came to it, but he saw nobody.

When he reached Sylvia Crane’s house he noticed that the front 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, looking straight at Barney Thayer’s face, saw the face of Richard Alger.