"Perhaps it's Barry."
"Didn't he come with you?"
"No. He went on with Leila and the General."
"But it is two o'clock, Aunt Isabelle."
"I didn't know; I thought perhaps he had come."
Going back into her room, Mary threw on her blue dressing-gown and slippers and opened her door. The light was still burning in the hall. Barry always turned it out when he came. She stood undecided, then started down the back stairs, but halted as the door opened and a dark figure appeared.
"Barry——"
Roger Poole looked up at her. "It isn't your brother," he said. "I—I must beg your pardon for disturbing you. I could not sleep, and I went out——" He stopped and stammered. Poised there above him with all the wonder of her unbound hair about her, she was like some celestial vision.
She smiled at him. "It doesn't matter," she said; "please don't apologize. It was foolish of me to be—frightened. But I had forgotten that there was any one else in the house."
She was unconscious of the effect of her words. But his soul shrank within him. To her he was the lodger who paid the rent. To him she was, well, just now she was, to him, the Blessed Damosel!