After all it was not Molly Wilton who first came into the room where Adrian waited for the duet, but her elder sister, Amy. Each sister had her recognised province, in which she reigned supreme. Amy was the beauty of the family, and had a taste for poetry; Molly was musical and lively. This arrangement worked perfectly, and Molly admired her sister's charms, and her poetical sympathies, without a trace of jealousy, feeling quite sure that justice would be done to her if there were any question of music or repartee.

Adrian was not looking at his proofs when Miss Wilton came in. He was sitting on the sofa, with his legs stretched out before him, gazing into space, and thinking of Sandmoor, near Ilfracombe. It was absolutely necessary that he should put himself into communication with that place, but how was it to be done? Should he write that day, or should he go the next?

"Oh, I have interrupted you!" Miss Wilton ejaculated, and stopped just inside the door.

"Interrupted me! Not a bit of it! I was only——"

"You were thinking of that sonnet—I know you were!"

"No, really," said Adrian, almost wishing he had been thinking of that sonnet. "No, I wasn't. In fact I think the sonnet is pretty well finished."

"Is it? You must read it to me, won't you?" and she came forward eagerly, took a chair, and dropped into a graceful attitude of attention. She had a real taste for poetry, and the poet was also to her liking. This was not the first time that she had listened, with shining eyes and quickened breath, and had brought the colour to the young man's cheek by saying with soft earnestness, "I like that—O, I like that!" Adrian found it very pleasant to read his poems to Miss Wilton.

"If you like," he said. "If you are sure it won't bore you."

"Of course I like," she answered.

"It's the first sonnet of all, you know," he explained, "a sort of dedication. I didn't like the one I had, so I shall make them put this in instead." He pulled his papers out of his pocket, and took a leaf of manuscript from among the printed pages. "You must tell me what you think of it," he said, and cleared his throat.

At that moment Molly opened the door. She saw the state of affairs at a glance, and slipped into her place, as quietly as if she had come into church late, and spied a convenient free seat.

Adrian read—

As he finished he lifted his eyes and looked at Amy. Where else should a young man look, to emphasise the meaning of his love-poem, except into a woman's sympathising eyes? But the look, mere matter of course as it was, startled and silenced her. "You—if you alone!" The words, spoken with the soft fulness of Adrian's pleasant voice, rang in her ears. A young woman whose attractions were recognised by all the family might very well be pardoned for not at once perceiving that the emphasis was purely artistic.

But the silence which would have been full of meaning for the lover, frightened the poet.

"You don't like it!" he exclaimed, anxiously.

"Oh yes, I do—I like it very much."

"But there is something wrong," Adrian persisted. "I am sure you don't like it."

"Indeed—indeed I do," the girl declared fervently, and Molly chimed in with an enthusiastic—

"Oh, Mr. Scarlett, it's charming!"

"It's very kind of you to say so," he replied, pocketing his sonnet and going towards the piano, still with a slightly troubled expression. "Shall we try that duet now?"

Molly's thoughts were very easily diverted from poetry. She set up the music; but just as she was about to strike the first note, an idea occurred to her, and spinning half round on the stool—

"Amy," she said, "do you call that Mr. Harding so very good-looking?"

Amy was taken by surprise.

"I? oh no!" she answered.

"There!" Molly exclaimed, looking up at Scarlett.

"Why, what do you mean?" Miss Wilton asked. "Somehow I can't fancy he'll live. Whenever I look at that man's face I think of death."

"What a queer idea!" said the younger sister reflectively. "Well, he certainly doesn't look strong, and I should think that Robinson boy would be enough to worry anybody into an early grave."

Adrian, standing by the piano, raised his eyes to the old mirror, as if he half expected to see the pale face with its watchful eyes below the gleaming surface of the glass. But it reflected only a vague confusion of curtain and wall-paper, and the feathery foliage of a palm.

"I say," said Molly, "had you met him before this morning, or did you introduce yourselves?"

"We introduced ourselves. I found he knew a place where I stayed last summer. Don't you remember," he said, looking across at Amy, "the old house I told you about?"

"I remember. Where you wrote that bit,'Waiting by the Sundial'?"

Scarlett nodded.

"Yes. Well, I found he knew it well—in fact it turned out that he was a connection——"

"What, of your friends there?"

"No, not of my friends, of the old family who used to have the place."

"Oh, your friends aren't the old family then?" said Molly.

"No, they are not. I ought to say they were not—there were only two of them," he added in an explanatory fashion, "old Mr. Hayes, and his niece Miss Strange, and Mr. Harding told me to-day that the old man was dead. I didn't know it."

Molly looked up sympathetically, but, as he did not seem to be over-powered with grief, she went on, after a moment—

"Isn't it funny how, when one has never heard a name, and then one does hear it, one is sure to hear it again in three or four different ways directly? Did you ever notice that?"

Mr. Scarlett wasn't sure that he had, but he agreed that it was a very remarkable law.

"Well it always is so—you notice," she said. "Now I don't remember that I ever knew of anybody of the name of Strange in all my life, and now the Ashfords have got a Miss Strange staying with them, and here your friend is a Miss Strange."

His glance quickened a little at this illustration of the rule in question.

"Curious!" he said. "And who is this Miss Strange who is staying with the Ashfords?"

"Oh, she is a clergyman's daughter from Devonshire. She is very pretty. Amy, don't you think that Miss Strange is pretty?"

"Very pretty," said Amy, taking a book from the table.

"Yes, very pretty, for that style," Molly repeated.

"And what is her particular style?" Adrian asked, keeping his eyes, which were growing eager, fixed upon the keyboard.

"Oh, I don't know—she's rather small," said Molly lamely (Barbara was not as tall as Amy Wilton), "and she is dark—too dark, I think." (Amy was decidedly fair.) "She has a quantity of black hair. Do you like black hair?" (Amy's was wound in shining golden coils,) "and rather a colour, and fine eyes. Oh, dear, how difficult it is to describe people!"

It might be so, and yet young Scarlett, as he listened, could actually see a pair of soft eyes shining under darkly pencilled brows, a cloud of shadowy hair, and lips of deep carnation. It would rather have seemed that Miss Molly Wilton excelled in the art of description.

"Do you know what her name is?" he asked in an indifferent voice, stooping a little to look at a speck on one of the keys, and touching it with a neat finger-nail.

"What, do you think it may be your Miss Strange?"

"It's possible," he said. "Her people were somewhere in that part of the world."

"I did hear her name—no, don't say it! Amy, do you remember Miss Strange's name?"

Amy looked up absently.

"Something old-fashioned—wasn't it Barbara?"

Adrian had lifted his head, and their eyes met. In that moment the girl saw what a glance could mean. It was just a flash of light, and then his ordinary look.

"Yes," he said, "that's the name; it must be the Miss Strange I know."

"Dear me!" said Molly, "I hope I didn't say any harm of her just now! You'd better go and call. You remember the Ashfords, you went with us to a garden party at their place when you were staying here two years ago."

Adrian smiled, and moved towards the window, forgetting his engagement at the piano.

"Oh!" said the disappointed musician, "aren't we to have the duet then?"

"I beg your pardon," he answered, coming back with bright promptitude, "I'm quite ready."

But Amy, as their voices rose and filled the room, sat gazing at the page which she did not read. She had seen how Adrian Scarlett could look, when he heard the name of Barbara. And she had thought, because he turned towards her when he read a sonnet—she had thought—what? A pink flush dyed her delicate skin. Our pardonable mistakes are precisely what we ourselves can never pardon.

The song being ended young Scarlett made his escape. He was half amused, half indignant.

"Sandmoor near Ilfracombe! Confound the fellow, he knew where she was all the time, and I thought he was rather unwilling to give me her Devonshire address! Sandmoor near Ilfracombe indeed!"