Harding made sure that she would. If she failed to do so he had no scheme ready. He did not know the Ashfords, and to go up to their house and ask for Miss Strange, could lead, at the best, to nothing but a formal interview under the eyes of an old lady who would consider his visit an impertinence. But Barbara would come! It was surely time that his luck should turn. When the hazard of the die has been against us a dozen times we are apt to have an irrational conviction that our chance must come with the next throw, and Harding strolled round the Ashfords' place, questioning only how, and how soon, she would appear. To see her once--it was so little that he asked!--to see her, and to hold her hand for a moment in his own, and to make her look up at him, straight into his eyes. And if she had the fancy still, as he somehow thought she had, to hear him say that he forgave her, why, he would say it. As if he had ever blamed her for the little forgetfulness which had ended all his hopes of fortune! And yet, if Barbara could have known how near that fortune had been! The old man's health had failed suddenly during the winter, the great inheritance was about to fall in, and Reynold would have been a partner and his own master within a few months from his decision. "Well," he said to himself as he leant on the gate in Nutfield Lane, "and even so, what harm has she done? Was I not going to say No before I saw her? And if she persuaded me to write the Yes which turned to No at the bottom of her apron pocket, am I to complain of her for that?" He thought, that he would ask her for a flower, a leaf, or a budding twig from the hedge, just by way of remembrance. At present he had none, except the unopened letter which she had given back to him in his lodgings at Mitchelhurst. The day grew fairer as it passed. Though a couple of sparkling showers, which filled the sunlit air with the quick flashing of falling drops, drove him once and again for shelter to a hay-stack in a neighbouring meadow, the blue field overhead widened little by little, and shone through the tracery of leafless boughs. He felt his spirits rising almost in spite of himself. He came back, after the second shower, by the field path to the lane, and was in the act of getting over the gate when he heard steps coming quickly towards him. Not Barbara's, they were from the opposite direction. He sprang hastily down, and found himself face to face with Mr. Adrian Scarlett, who was humming a tune.