“Are you?”

Ashe looked about him and was relieved to find that they appeared to be out of earshot of their species.  It was not easy to achieve this position at the castle if you happened to be there as a domestic servant.  The space provided for the ladies and gentlemen attached to the guests was limited, and it was rarely that you could enjoy a stroll without bumping into a maid, a valet or a footman; but now they appeared to be alone.  The drive leading to the back regions of the castle was empty.  As far as the eye could reach there were no signs of servants—­upper or lower.  Nevertheless, Ashe lowered his voice.

“Was it not a strange coincidence,” he said, “that you should have come into my life at all?”

“Not very,” said Joan prosaically.  “It was quite likely that we should meet sooner or later, as we lived on different floors of the same house.”

“It was a coincidence that you should have taken that room.”

“Why?”

Ashe felt damped.  Logically, no doubt, she was right; but surely she might have helped him out a little in this difficult situation.  Surely her woman’s intuition should have told her that a man who has been speaking in a loud and cheerful voice does not lower it to a husky whisper without some reason.  The hopelessness of his task began to weigh on him.

Ever since that evening at Market Blandings Station, when he realized that he loved her, he had been trying to find an opportunity to tell her so; and every time they had met, the talk had seemed to be drawn irresistibly into practical and unsentimental channels.  And now, when he was doing his best to reason it out that they were twin souls who had been brought together by a destiny it would be foolish to struggle against; when he was trying to convey the impression that fate had designed them for each other—­she said, “Why?” It was hard.

He was about to go deeper into the matter when, from the direction of the castle, he perceived the Honorable Freddie’s valet—­Mr. Judson—­approaching.  That it was this repellent young man’s object to break in on them and rob him of his one small chance of inducing Joan to appreciate, as he did, the mysterious workings of Providence as they affected herself and him, was obvious.  There was no mistaking the valet’s desire for conversation.  He had the air of one brimming over with speech.  His wonted indolence was cast aside; and as he drew nearer he positively ran.  He was talking before he reached them.

“Miss Simpson, Mr. Marson, it’s true—­what I said that night.  It’s a fact!”

Ashe regarded the intruder with a malevolent eye.  Never fond of Mr. Judson, he looked on him now with positive loathing.  It had not been easy for him to work himself up to the point where he could discuss with Joan the mysterious ways of Providence, for there was that about her which made it hard to achieve sentiment.  That indefinable something in Joan Valentine which made for nocturnal raids on other people’s museums also rendered her a somewhat difficult person to talk to about twin souls and destiny.  The qualities that Ashe loved in her—­her strength, her capability, her valiant self-sufficingness—­were the very qualities which seemed to check him when he tried to tell her that he loved them.