“Death has no terrors for Nicol Brinn,” he said slowly.  “All his life he has toyed with danger.  He admitted to me that during the past seven years he had courted death.  Isn’t it plain enough, Innes?  If ever a man possessed all that the world had to offer, Nicol Brinn is that man.  In such a case and in such circumstances what do we look for?”

Innes shook his head.

“We look for the woman!” snapped Paul Harley.

There came a rap at the door and Miss Smith, the typist, entered.  “Miss Phil Abingdon and Doctor McMurdoch,” she said.

“Good heavens!” muttered Harley.  “So soon?  Why, she can only just—­” He checked himself.  “Show them in, Miss Smith,” he directed.

As the typist went out, followed by Innes, Paul Harley found himself thinking of the photograph in Sir Charles Abingdon’s library and waiting with an almost feverish expectancy for the appearance of the original.

Almost immediately Phil Abingdon came in, accompanied by the sepulchral Doctor McMurdoch.  And Harley found himself wondering whether her eyes were really violet-coloured or whether intense emotion heroically repressed had temporarily lent them that appearance.

Surprise was the predominant quality of his first impression.  Sir Charles Abingdon’s daughter was so exceedingly vital—­petite and slender, yet instinct with force.  The seeming repose of the photograph was misleading.  That her glance could be naive he realized—­as it could also be gay—­and now her eyes were sad with a sadness so deep as to dispel the impression of lightness created by her dainty form, her alluring, mobile lips, and the fascinating, wavy, red-brown hair.

She did not wear mourning.  He recalled that there had been no time to procure it.  She was exquisitely and fashionably dressed, and even the pallor of grief could not rob her cheeks of the bloom born of Devon sunshine.  He had expected her to be pretty.  He was surprised to find her lovely.

Doctor McMurdoch stood silent in the doorway, saying nothing by way of introduction.  But nothing was necessary.  Phil Abingdon came forward quite naturally—­and quite naturally Paul Harley discovered her little gloved hand to lie clasped between both his own.  It was more like a reunion than a first meeting and was so laden with perfect understanding that, even yet, speech seemed scarcely worth while.

Thinking over that moment, in later days, Paul Harley remembered that he had been prompted by some small inner voice to say:  “So you have come back?” It was recognition.  Of the hundreds of men and women who came into his life for a while, and ere long went out of it again, he knew, by virtue of that sixth sense of his, that Phil Abingdon had come to stay—­whether for joy or sorrow he could not divine.

It was really quite brief—­that interval of silence—­although perhaps long enough to bridge the ages.

“How brave of you, Miss Abingdon!” said Harley.  “How wonderfully brave of you!”