The tall, graceful figure, the dark clustering hair, the way she held her head-all these had brought conviction even before she turned. Now, looking from the darkness of the porch, he saw her face in the faintly glowing twilight which filled the hall. It was rather like seeing a reflection in water, because he could only guess at the colour which a fuller light would show. The eyes were shadowed. They might be brown, or grey, or a very dark blue. But the brows over them were the brows of the picture, strongly marked, with the odd lift and tilt which gave the face its own decided character. Another woman might have the wide generous mouth, the line of cheek and chin, but those lifting brows could belong to no one else. They certainly didn’t belong to the Jenny Maxwell who had written to him. He said,

“It is rather a late hour to call, I’m afraid, but I was passing this way, and I hoped that it might be possible for me to see her. I ought to have been here earlier, but I had a puncture, and then I lost my way in your winding lanes.”

She took a step back.

“Jenny?”

“Miss Jenny Maxwell. She lives here, doesn’t she?”

“Yes-”

Her voice had a doubtful tone. A perfectly strange man coming in out of the night and wanting to see Jenny-it didn’t seem to be the sort of thing that happened, and here it was, happening. She said with a simple directness which he liked,

“I am her sister, Rosamond Maxwell. Do you mind telling me why you want to see Jenny?”

He said, “She wrote to me.”

“Jenny wrote to you?”

He nodded.

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No-no-”

“And you don’t know who I am?”

He produced a card and held it out. She read, “Mr. Craig Lester.” Under the words a second name was added in pencil- “Pethertons.”

Rosamond began to understand. She stood back a little farther. He came across the threshold, took the door from her hand, and shut it behind him.