But he could not wait to complete his rehearsal. He found himself moving swiftly upon the small, silvered house. It was very old and weathered looking; it made him think a little of the houses on the fog-drenched islands in Maine. He stood upon the gray, worn step and rapped with blue knuckles, and almost instantly he heard the sound of quick, light feet coming toward him, and the door flew open. The woman who stood there was not quite young, but she would never be old. She wore a smock of dull blue linen and her very smooth brown hair was sleekly parted and coiled, and she looked at him keenly and gladly. Her eyes were a dark hazel, fearless and friendly, and very bright. He opened his lips and tried to keep his teeth from chattering. “My name--” he began, steadily enough, “my name--” and then confusion and chaos descended upon him. He might have been back in the hospital in England, fighting for memory through black clouds. “‘_My name is Norval_--’” he said, rapidly, and broke off gasping, horrified. The woman stared at him for the fraction of a second, her eyes widening; then they narrowed and warmed and fine little lines came round the corners of them and she laughed aloud, delightedly. “Well,” she said, “aren’t you a long way from the Grampian hills? Come in! Do come in--I was just having to drink my tea all alone!” CHAPTER X HE stumbled over the threshold and found himself in an amazing room. He was to observe, later on, that two partitions had been knocked out to make three cubby-holes into a living room of pleasant dimensions, that the floor sagged and that the walls slanted, that the raftered ceiling was rough: at the moment he was aware only of a leaping, crackling fire on the hearth, of a Chinese wicker tea table drawn up before it with a wicker armchair on each side, and--beyond these joyful things--shelves of books, books, books, running along one entire end of the place; the gleam of good brass in the firelight; good prints on the walls. “You are Mr. Wolcott, of course,” the woman said. “And I am Margaret Golinda--but you know that! We have been hoping you would come to see us. Sit down, and pull your chair closer to the fire--you must be fog-chilled to your marrow! Tea is _just_ ready and piping hot--I just lifted the kettle off as you knocked! You see, I always pull up another chair for tea, on the hope that Mateo may come in and join me--and he does, once in a blue moon!” Fine little lines of mirth framed her eyes again. “He does like it, when he can spare the half hour, but I dare say it’s a slothful habit for ranchers!” “It’s a heavenly habit,” said Dean Wolcott, fervently. He leaned toward the fire, holding his stiff fingers in the stinging, scorching heat. “I must ask your pardon, Mrs. Golinda, for what must have seemed my clumsy facetiousness, just now. I will tell you how I came to say--”