He had passed out of the shadow of the high boundary wall into the broad moonlight which flooded the gate-way. The iron gates were open, and a white figure stood in the light--the figure of a tall young woman who did not move. He was so near that her dress almost touched him. In another moment he was hurrying along the road again, not having spoken, and scarcely understanding the momentary shock he had received. "That," he said to himself,--"that was she!" When he reached home and opened the door of the little parlor, Christian Murdoch was sitting alone by the dying fire in the grate. She turned and looked at him. "Something," she said, "has happened to you. What is it?" "I don't know," he answered, "that anything has happened to me--anything of importance." She turned to the fire again and sat gazing at it, rubbing the back of one hand slowly with the palm of the other, as it lay on her knee. "Something has happened to _me_," she said. "To-day I have seen some one I know." "Some one you know?" he echoed. "Here?" She nodded her head. "Some one I know," she repeated, "though I do not know her name. I should like to know it." "_Her_ name," he said. "Then it is a woman?" "Yes, a woman--a young woman. I saw her abroad--four--five times." She began to check off the number of times on her fingers. "In Florence once," she said. "In Munich twice; in Paris--yes, in Paris twice again." "When and how?" he asked. As he spoke, he thought of the unruffled serenity of the face he had just seen. "Years ago, the first time," she answered, without the least change of tone, "in a church in Florence. I went in because I was wet and cold and hungry, and it was light and warm there. I was a little thing, and left to ramble in the streets. I liked the streets better than my mother's room. I was standing in the church, looking at the people and trying to feel warm, when a girl came in with a servant. She was handsome and well dressed, and looked almost like a woman. When she saw me, she laughed. I was such a little thing, and so draggled and forlorn. That was why she laughed. The next year I saw her again, at Munich. Her room was across the street and opposite mine, and she sat at the window, amusing herself by playing with her dog and staring at me. She had forgotten me, but I had not forgotten her; and she laughed at me again. In Paris it was the same thing. Our windows were opposite each other again. It was five years after, but that time she knew me, though she pretended she did not. She drove past the house to-day, and I saw her. I should like to know her name." "I think I can tell you what it is," he said. "She is a Miss Ffrench. Her father is a Broxton man. They have a place here." "Have they?" she asked. "Will they live here?" "I believe so," he answered. She sat for a moment, rubbing her hand slowly as before, and then she spoke. "So much the worse," she said,--"so much the worse for me."