I reached Hammerstone Market without adventure, took a fly from the station, and drove to the house. Darkness had long since set in, and I could see nothing of the grounds when presently the vehicle turned in at the gates; I could only judge, by the sound of the churning wheels, that we were driving through masses of dead leaves that must have lain there for many past years. Coming to the house at last, I was deposited with the luggage outside the door, and the fly drove away. I stood there in the darkness, hearing a great bell clang somewhere in the distance, and wondering what would be said to me when the door should presently open. I had no fear that any one would recognize me; the mere thought of that was absurd. Indeed, there was but one disturbing thought in my mind--the fear of meeting the new Barbara, and so of coming face to face with that figure, cut, as it were, out of the life I had once lived in that very place; I feared I should not be able to trust myself or my voice at that time. For the rest, I only knew dimly that I should probably have to see much that might goad me almost to madness, and yet that I must say nothing; I was in a sense fumbling in the dark, with only my memories to guide me. The door was opened at last, and I stepped, as it were, straight back into that night when I had first come to this house with my guardian--twenty years before. Nothing was changed, save only that everything seemed to have dwindled in the years, and that the furniture was shabbier and meaner looking. I felt my heart beating fast as I looked towards that broad staircase down which I had once seen the Barbara who was dead coming, with tears in her eyes, and with her laughing bridesmaids surrounding her. It seemed almost as though she might at any moment turn the corner of the staircase, and come down towards me. An elderly woman in a dingy black dress took my letter, and bade me stay where I was. She appeared to be a servant; and I watched her as she climbed the stairs slowly, and went away, leaving me standing in the hall. I was looking about me when I heard above a quick, light footstep; looking up, I saw Barbara coming down the stairs, with one hand lightly resting on the rail, and with her eyes turned straight towards me. I stood there watching her; I wondered vaguely what she would have thought had she known who I was, and under what circumstances I had last stood in that place, twenty years before. When she came up to me she spoke with her mother's tongue, and with a little quick smile that had belonged to the dead woman. "My father sent me to you; he is not--not very well to-night. He understands, of course, that Mr. Olivant is coming down"--the smile died from her lips, and she seemed to draw herself up a little stiffly--"everything shall be got ready for him. You are strange here; you won't know your room. Your name is Tinman?"