He bit his lip impatiently. There had been no harm in the theatricals, just the usual joking and intimacy among the actors behind the scenes, and the usual love-making and embraces on the stage. Adrian's conscience was clear enough, and yet the recollection of the girl who played the heroine (painted and powdered a little more than was absolutely necessary, for the mere pleasure of painting and powdering, as is the way with amateurs), came back to him with unpleasant distinctness. He could see her face, close to his own, as he remembered it on the hot little gaslit stage, in their great reconciliation scene, the scene that was always followed by a burst of applause. Everybody had admired his very becoming dress, and Scarlett himself had been rather proud of it. But now in a freak of his vivid imagination, he pictured the masquerading figure that he was, all showy pretence, with a head full of cues and inflated speeches, set down suddenly in the wintry loneliness of Mitchelhurst Place, and passing along the corridors to the threshold of the dead man's room, to see Barbara turn with startled eyes in the midst of the shadows. God! how pitiful and incongruous was that frippery, as he saw it in his fancy, brought thus into the presence of the last reality! And Barbara, had she wondered at his silence during all these months? Never one word of regret for the old man who had been kind to him! "I wouldn't have had it happen for anything!" he said to himself. "What has she thought of me?" Harding, with eyelids slightly drooping, was watching him, and Scarlett suddenly became aware of the fact. "No, I suppose nobody is likely to take the old house," he said hurriedly. "I used to think it must be dull for Miss Strange, shut up there with nobody but her uncle." "I should say it was." "Well, Devonshire's a nice county, not that I know much of it. What part of Devonshire do the Stranges live in--do you know?" "North Devon," Reynold Harding answered, and then added, half reluctantly, "Sandmoor, near Ilfracombe." "Ah, it isn't a part I know at all," said Adrian aloud, and to himself he repeated "Sandmoor, near Ilfracombe." At that moment the door opened, and one of the daughters of the house came in. "Oh, Mr. Harding!" she exclaimed, advancing, and shaking hands in a quick, careless fashion, "I'm afraid you've been kept waiting a long while." "It doesn't matter," said Harding, standing very stiffly. "Is Guy ready now, Miss Wilton?" "Yes, he's waiting in the hall. Bob got him away to the stables, and I didn't know he was there till just now: you know what those boys are when they get together. I thought Guy had _better_ wait in the hall, for I'm afraid he's not as clean as he might be." "It doesn't matter," Harding replied again. "He very seldom is." "I did try to brush him," said the girl good-humouredly, "but I didn't do much good." "Wanted something a good deal more thorough, no doubt," Adrian suggested.