He would see her, not standing as he had seen her first, in sad autumnal scenery, not coming towards him in the pale firelit room, not walking beside him to the village, while the wind drove flights of dead leaves across the grey curtain of the sky, not as she faced him, frightened and breathless, in the quivering circle of lamplight on the stairs, not as he remembered her last of all, when she stood beyond the boundary which he might not cross, and Mitchelhurst Place rose behind her in the light of the moon, white and dead as dry bones. It seemed to him that it must always be autumn at Mitchelhurst, with dim, short days, and gusty nights, and the chilly atmosphere laden with odours of decay. But all this was past and over, and he was going to meet Barbara in the spring. Barbara in April--all happy songs of love, all the young gladness of the year, all tender possibilities were summed up in those three words. He was startled at the sudden eagerness which escaped from his control, and throbbed and bounded within him when he resolved to see her once again. But he did not betray it outwardly, unless, perhaps, by an attempt to write his next correction with a dry pen. He listened to Guy's excited chatter as the day drew near, and set out with him to carry the invitation to Bob Wilton, in a mood which, on the surface, was one of apathetic patience. Nothing he could do would hasten the arrival of Tuesday, but nevertheless it was coming. When the two boys went off to the stables together, he waited. He might as well wait in the Wiltons' sunny drawing-room as anywhere else. And when some one entered by the further door and began to play, he listened, not ill pleased. He had no ear for music, but the defect was purely physical, and except for that hindrance he might have loved it. As it was he could not appreciate the meaning of what was played beyond the curtain, nor could he recognise the skill and delicacy with which it was rendered. To him it was only a bright, formless ripple of sound, gliding vaguely by, till suddenly Barbara's tune, rounded and clear and silver sweet, awoke him from his reverie. For a moment he sat breathless with wonder. Only a dull memory of her music had stayed with him, a kind of tuneless beating of its measure, and the living notes, melodiously full, pursued that poor ghost through his heart and brain. His pulses throbbed as if the girl herself were close at hand. Then he rose, and softly stepped across the room. Who was it who was playing Barbara's tune? Who but the man who had played it to Barbara?