"There was nothing of the ghost about Duncan!" he remarked. "I should consider him a remarkably substantial person. Don't you think that we were all a little overwrought last night? A strong likeness and a little imagination will often work wonders." "If it was a likeness only," she said, "why did he leave us so abruptly, why has he left this place at a moment's notice to avoid us?" Wrayson was silent for a few seconds. "Look here," he said, "this is a matter of common sense after all. If you were _not_ deceived by a likeness, it was the man himself! That goes without saying. What reasons had you for supposing that he was dead?" "The newspapers, the War Office, even the return of his effects." "From where?" Wrayson asked. "From South Africa. He was shot through the lungs in Natal!" "Men have turned up before, after having been reported dead," he remarked sententiously. "But he was in the army," she replied. "Don't you see that if he was alive now, he would be a deserter. He has never rejoined. He was certified as having died in the hospital at Ladysmith!" Wrayson looked steadily into her agitated face. "Supposing," he said, "that he turned out to be the man whom you have in your mind, what is he to you?" "My brother," she answered simply. Wrayson's first impulse was of surprise. Then he drew a long breath of relief. He looked back upon his long hours of anxiety, and cursed himself for a fool. "What an idiot I have been!" he declared. "Of course, I know that you lost a brother in South Africa. But--but what about Madame de Melbain?" "Madame de Melbain and my brother were friends," she said quietly. "There were obstacles or they would have been more than friends." Wrayson nodded. "Now supposing," he said, "that, by some miracle, your brother still lived, that this was he, is there any reason why he should avoid you both?" She thought for a moment. "Yes!" she said slowly, "there is." "I suppose," he continued tentatively, "you couldn't tell me all about it?" "I couldn't," she answered. "It isn't my secret." Wrayson looked for a moment away from her, across the valley with its flower-spangled meadows, parted by that sinuous poplar-fringed line of silver, the lazy, slow-flowing river stealing through the quiet land to the sea. The full summer heat was scarcely yet in the air, but already a faint blue haze was rising from the lowlands. Up on the plateau, where they were sitting, a slight breeze stirred amongst the trees; Monsieur Jules had indeed some ground for his pride in this tiny sylvan paradise. "I think," he said, "that for one day we will forget all this tangle of secrets and unaccountable doings. What do you say, Louise?" he whispered, taking her unresisting hand into his. "May I tell Monsieur Jules to serve breakfast for two in the arbour there?" She laughed softly into his face. There was the look in her eyes which he loved to see, half wistful, half content, almost happy.