Nigel had flung the ball at his mother, and fallen over his father’s legs. The three were laughing and shouting together. She came to the open casement, pushed it wider, and leaned out. She spoke, very quietly, into the fragrant darkness; the faintest whisper, yet he heard. “I was expecting you”.... Her voice was like the night-wind in the tops of the pine trees; soft as a sigh, and full of mystery. “Do not go.... You will find a chair in the corner on your right. Wait there until I am alone.” She drew back into the room, and closed the casement. He sank into the chair and sat there in the silence, listening to the beating of his heart. It sounded like heavy breakers pounding upon the rocks below. SCENE III THE EXPECTED GUEST He sat very still, and waited. He had miles to walk before he could reach an inn; but food and a night’s lodging seemed unnecessary considerations in this strange hour. She had asked him to wait until she should be alone; and he waited. A motor came to the other side of the house; panted impatiently, for five minutes; then sped away into the distance. He stood up and looked into the room. It was empty. Fresh logs had been thrown upon the fire. The door into the hall was shut. Even as he looked, it opened. An elderly butler appeared, walked forward into the room, hesitated; then advanced to the garden door, touched a switch, and a couple of hanging lanterns shed a soft light over the veranda. He stood in the doorway, as if momentarily uncertain; then saw the chair and its occupant in the corner on his left, came over to it and delivered his message, in deferential tones, without lifting his eyes. “Her ladyship bids me say, sir, that dinner will be served in half an hour. If you will follow me, I will show you to your room.” “To my room?” “Yes, sir. Her ladyship understood you would be able to dine and sleep.” The butler moved to the door, held it wide, and waited. There was nothing for it, but to rise and enter. So the man who had all his life looked in from without, now stepped over the threshold and found himself within. Feeling keenly alive and yet as if moving in a vivid dream, Luke Sparrow walked across the room, and followed the butler into the brightly-lighted hall, and up a wide staircase. On a table in the hall stood a box of library books, addressed with a brush, in very black ink. Before he realised what he was doing he had read the name— LADY TINTAGEL. He repeated it to himself, as he mounted the stairs. It awakened memories of Camelot. He had never heard of it as a family name; but it seemed in keeping with this romance of an unexpected visit, as an expected guest. At the top of the stairs the butler paused to say: “Her ladyship desires that you will please yourself, sir, as to whether you dress or not.”