"As you know, I've never met her sister, and know nothing at all about her, except that they lived together, and I've always had the impression that there was something--I don't know just how to put it--something--well--wrong--about the sister," said Donald, slowly. "Mary never let me come up to the apartment, and there was something odd in her face whenever her sister was mentioned. Of course it happened but rarely--and it's a hard thing to define. Perhaps a person less interested would scarcely have noticed----" Donald relapsed into thought. After a moment Peter said: "And when was it that you first met Miss Blake?" "About a year or so ago, it was," said Morris, rousing himself, his eyes kindling. "I'll never forget it! It was at my sister's. I'd heard a lot about Mary Blake, and had seen her several times on the stage, of course. She seemed to me, even then, to be the most beautiful woman and the greatest actress of our time. My sister, Mrs. Atterbury, prides herself on knowing all the literary and artistic people, all the eminent musicians and actors in town. It's almost a mild form of mania with her. And most of them respond readily," with a little shrug, "but for a long time she couldn't reach Mary Blake, and the fact piqued her more than a little. Miss Blake's former manager, Arthur Quinn, guarded her like a dragon. It was amusing to see Helena--my sister--trying to cajole old Quinn, whom she knew well, into introducing her. It simply couldn't be done. But when poor Quinn died, and it was known that Miss Blake had signed up with Frederick Jones, Helena started to work on him. Jones, it seems, has social ambitions, and whether it was that, or what it was, my sister induced him to let her go behind the scenes one night and meet Miss Blake. Helena has a way with her, I must say, and somehow she prevailed on Mary to give a reading at the house, a thing she'd never done before, and has never done since. I don't know," he broke off, "why I'm telling you all these details, Clancy, only you said----" "Go on, don't skip anything," said Peter, encouragingly. "So the first time you met Miss Blake was at the reading at your sister's house?" "Yes, and, oh, it was wonderful, marvellous!" He spoke slowly, with the air of one who lives again one of the greatest moments of his life. "They used the big model platform at one end of my studio for a stage. The room, of course, was dark, and when the curtains were drawn aside, she stood there in the dim blue light, her face a pale oval, shining faintly, like a star." He had forgotten Peter. All his mind was filled with a poignant remembrance. "She spoke--and it was as if the stars sang together.... It didn't matter what she said.... The sheer magnetism of her personality, the beauty of the soul which looked out of her eyes--so near, so near--drew like cords of steel.... Her strange, sad face seemed, somehow, oddly familiar ... as if I'd seen it before ... in a dream, perhaps. It----"