"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.
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