“How strange,” said Brian, absently, for indeed he was admiring her charming face, which looked so pure and sweet in the moonlight.

“Yes, wasn’t it?” she replied.  “He had on a light coat and a soft hat, just like you wear sometimes, and as you are both the same height, I took you for one another.”

Brian did not answer, but there was a cold feeling at his heart as he saw a possibility of his worst suspicions being confirmed, for just at that moment there came into his mind the curious coincidence of the man who got into the hansom cab being dressed similarly to himself.  What if—­“Nonsense,” he said, aloud, rousing himself out of the train of thought the resemblance had suggested.

“I’m sure it isn’t,” said Madge, who had been talking about something else for the last five minutes.  “You are a very rude young man.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Brian, waking up.  “You were saying—­”

“That the horse is the most noble of all animals—­Exactly.”

“I don’t understand—­” began Brian, rather puzzled.

“Of course you don’t,” interrupted Madge, petulantly; “considering I’ve been wasting my eloquence on a deaf man for the last ten minutes; and very likely lame as well as deaf.”

And to prove the truth of the remark, she ran up the path with Brian after her.  He had a long chase of it, for Madge was nimble and better acquainted with the garden than he was but at last he caught her just as she was running up the steps into the house, and then—­history repeats itself.

They went into the drawing-room and found that Mr. Frettlby had gone up to his study, and did not want to be disturbed.  Madge sat down to the piano, but before she struck a note, Brian took both her hands prisoners.

“Madge,” he said, gravely, as she turned round, “what did your father say when you made that mistake?”

“He was very angry,” she answered.  “Quite cross; I’m sure I don’t know why.”

Brian sighed as he released her hands, and was about to reply when the visitor’s bell sounded, they heard the servant answer it, and then someone was taken upstairs to Mr. Frettlby’s study.

When the footman came in to light the gas, Madge asked who it was that had come to the door.

“I don’t know, miss,” he answered; “he said he wanted to see Mr. Frettlby particularly, so I took him up to the study.”

“But I thought that papa said he was not to be disturbed?”

“Yes, miss, but the gentleman had an appointment with him.”

“Poor papa,” sighed Madge, turning again to the piano.  “He has always got such a lot to do.”

Left to themselves, Madge began playing Waldteufel’s last new valse, a dreamy, haunting melody, with a touch of sadness in it, and Brian, lying lazily on the sofa, listened.  Then she sang a gay little French song about Love and a Butterfly, with a mocking refrain, which made Brian laugh.