I must have flirted a great deal; or, at least, that he must have paid me a good lot of attention.  My father didn’t like it, Minnie said; he thought Dr. Ivor wasn’t well enough off to marry me.  He was a distant cousin of ours, of course—­everything was always “of course” with that dear bright Minnie—­what, didn’t I know that?  Oh, yes, his mother was one of the Moores of Barnstaple, cousin Edward’s people.  His name was Courtenay Moore Ivor, you know—­though I knew nothing of the sort.  And he was awfully clever.  And, oh, so handsome!

“Is he at Berry Pomeroy still?” I asked, trembling, thinking this would be a good person to get information from about the people at the Athletic Sports.

“Oh dear, no,” Minnie answered, looking hard at me, curiously.  “He was never at Berry Pomeroy.  He had a practice at Babbicombe.  He’s in Canada now, you know.  He went over six months after Cousin Vivian’s death.  I think, dear,”—­she hesitated,—­“he never quite got over your entirely forgetting him, even if you forgot your whole past history.”

This was a curious romance to me, that Minnie thus sprang on me—­a romance of my own past life of which I myself knew nothing.

We sat late talking, and I could see Minnie was very full indeed of Dr. Ivor.  Over and over again she recurred to his name, and always as though she thought it might rouse some latent chord in my memory.  But nothing came of it.  If ever I had cared for Dr. Ivor at all, that feeling had passed away utterly with the rest of my experiences.

When Minnie rose to go, I took her hand once more in mine.  As I did so, I started.  Something about it seemed strangely familiar.  I looked at it close with a keen glance.  Why, this was curious!  It was Aunt Emma’s hand:  it was my mother’s hand:  it was the hand in my mental Picture:  it was the hand of the murderer!

“It’s just like auntie’s,” I said with an effort, seeing Minnie noticed my start.

She looked at it and laughed.

“The Moore hand,” she said gaily.  “We all have it, except you.  It’s awfully persistent.”

I turned it over in front and examined the palm.  At sight of it my brain reeled.  This was surely magic!  Minnie Moore’s hand, too, was scarred over with cuts, exactly like Aunt Emma’s!”

“Why, how on earth did you do that?” I cried, thunderstruck at the discovery.

But Minnie only laughed again, a bright girlish laugh.

“Climbing over that beastly wall at The Grange,” she said with a merry look.  “Oh, what fun we did have!  We climbed it together.  We were dreadful tomboys in those days, dear, you and I:  but you were luckier than I was, and didn’t cut yourself with the bottle-glass.”

This was too surprising to be passed over unnoticed.  When Minnie was gone, I lay awake and pondered about it.  Had all the Moores got scars on their hands, I wondered?  And how many people, I asked myself, had cut themselves time and again in climbing over that barricaded garden-wall of my father’s?