Then, as often happens when one stands in an empty room, Joan was conscious of a supersensitiveness. She, quite naturally, attributed it to the ordeal she was about to undergo--the meeting with Clive Cameron and her late talk with Martin. Must she always be on the defensive? Must she always feel that her volcano had blown her up when really she had escaped by its light? While there was a certain amount of pleasurable excitement in the meeting with Cameron, while it lacked all that her meeting with Raymond had held, still her past experiences were of so uncommon a nature that she could not contemplate them without nervous strain, and she wished that she might have had a longer reprieve before Cameron came. "With nothing really to be ashamed of," she thought, "I feel like a criminal dodging justice. I wish something so big would come that I could lose myself in it." Then she walked to the window overlooking The Gap. "It's no easy matter, Joan my lamb!" almost it seemed as if it were Patricia speaking, "to tie both ends of the rainbow together." Joan smiled at her thought. "Dear, dear old Pat!" she spoke the words aloud. "The very thought of you--braces me." Joan was still on the backward trail. She did not often tread it, but when she did she always returned starry-eyed and brave-hearted. That was her reward: the reward that she could share with no one--except as it helped her to live. Presently she turned to her task of restoring the motto on the fireboard. She worked vigorously, intently, and then leaned back to get a better view. Suddenly, as if they were alive, the words emerged from the last sweep of the cloth. "Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire." The meaning broke like sunshine from the clouds. It made Joan laugh. "Well, of all the funny things," she said aloud, "and from the Bible, too," for "Isaiah" was brought into evidence by another rub. "This house is certainly haunted." Just then a sharp knock on the panels of the door, set wide to the sweet summer day, startled Joan and brought her to her feet, with that quivering of the nerves that betokened an almost psychic state. A tall man stood in the doorway. His clothes--good ones, well fashioned--were wrinkled and travel stained. They gave the impression of having been slept in. The man was like his garments--the worse for wear but, originally, of good material. Joan recognized that at once--after she got over the surprise of finding that he was not Clive Cameron. "Good morning," she said, quietly, while a familiarity about the stranger puzzled her. "Come in and sit down, please." The man came in, walking stiffly, his eyes fixed upon Joan in a way that confused her. She felt that she ought to remember him, but could not.