“Stay, Barbara.  There it is—­a brother.  I have been nothing else; it never occurred to me to be anything else,” he added, in his straightforward truth.

“Ay, as a brother, nothing else!” and her voice rose once more with her excitement; it seemed that she would not long control it.  “What cared you for my feelings?  What recked you that you gained my love?”

“Barbara, hush!” he implored:  “do be calm and reasonable.  If I ever gave you cause to think I regarded you with deeper feelings, I can only express to you my deep regret, my repentance, and assure you it was done unconsciously.”

She was growing calmer.  The passion was fading, leaving her face still and white.  She lifted it toward Mr. Carlyle.

“You treated me ill in showing signs of love, if you felt it not.  Why did you kiss me?”

“I kissed you as I might kiss a sister.  Or perhaps as a pretty girl; man likes to do so.  The close terms on which our families have lived, excused, if it did not justify, a degree of familiarity that might have been unseemly in—­”

“You need not tell me that,” hotly interrupted Barbara.  “Had it been a stranger who had won my love and then thrown me from him, do you suppose I would have reproached him as I am now reproaching you?  No; I would have died, rather than that he should have suspected it.  If she had not come between us, should you have loved me?”

“Do not pursue this unthankful topic,” he besought, almost wishing the staring cow would run away with her.

“I ask you, should you have loved me?” persisted Barbara, passing her handkerchief over her ashy lips.

“I don’t know.  How can I know?  Do I not say to you, Barbara, that I only thought of you as a friend, a sister?  I cannot tell what might have been.”

“I could bear it better, but that it was known,” she murmured.  “All West Lynne had coupled us together in their prying gossip, and they have only pity to cast on me now.  I would far rather you have killed me, Archibald.”

“I can but express to you my deep regret,” he repeated.  “I can only hope you will soon forget it all.  Let the remembrance of this conversation pass away with to-night; let us still be to each other as friends—­as brother and sister.  Believe me,” he concluded, in a deeper tone, “the confession has not lessened you in my estimation.”

He made a movement as though he would get over the stile, but Barbara did not stir; the tears were silently coursing down her pallid face.  At that moment there was an interruption.

“Is that you, Miss Barbara?”

Barbara started as if she had been shot.  On the other side of the stile stood Wilson, their upper maid.  How long might she have been there?  She began to explain that Mr. Hare had sent Jasper out, and Mrs. Hare had thought it better to wait no longer for the man’s return, so had dispatched her, Wilson, for Miss Barbara.  Mr. Carlyle got over the stile, and handed over Miss Barbara.