"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!" CHAPTER VIII. IN NUTFIELD LANE. When Reynold Harding assured Miss Wilton that it made very little difference to him whether he got rid of his pupil for a day or not, he told a lie. From the moment when he heard of Guy's holiday, he had resolved in his own mind that on that day of freedom, he would see Barbara Strange. He knew that she was staying with the Ashfords, and he had heard the Robinson girls talking about her one day after luncheon. "That pretty little Devonshire girl finds it dull, I think," said Violet. "Who wouldn't?" her sister exclaimed. "She has had time to hear all old Ashford's stories a dozen times before this, and they are stupid enough the first time. But how do you know she finds it dull?" "They say she is always running about the fields looking for primroses and cowslips. I saw her when I was out riding this morning, leaning on the gate into Nutfield Lane, with her hands full of them." "How very picturesque! Looking into the lane for some more?" "Or for some one to help her carry what she'd got. I don't know what I mightn't be driven to, myself, if I had to listen to old Ashford's prosing, and then go crawling out for a couple of hours boxed up in Mother Ashford's stuffy old brougham, two or three times a week. And Willy Ashford hardly ever comes, now he's engaged to that girl in Kensington." "No," said Muriel, "and I don't know that he would mend matters much if he did. Well, perhaps somebody with a taste for cowslips and innocence, will happen to walk along Nutfield Lane next time Miss Strange is looking over the gate. What did you think of doing this afternoon?"