But he did not hear. He had fallen into the rhythm of forward motion, the dinghy sliding effortlessly through the twilight toward the House. Two more solitary lobstermen approached, their work continuing even as they pointed home. I sat silently, feeling the boat surge beneath me, my back swaying slightly with each stroke. The water lay very still around us, still as the great quarry pool, calm and imperturbably deep at the center of the woods. Lulled by Papa’s steady, thoughtful strokes, I let the afternoon’s scene return, and saw the sorrow upon Miss Grange’s face beside the little grave, and saw her wish to have had me see, and I felt ashamed of my fright.

“I do not understand Miss Grange.” I sighed.

“Miss Grange!” Papa’s head rose up with a jerk, and he stopped rowing.

Startled, I put out my hand to his wrist. “Forgive me, Papa, I did not mean to stop you.”

He fixed me then. “What do you know of Miss Grange, that you should speak of her like that?”

“Nothing, Papa.” I trembled in the evening chill. Something had cracked a whip into my father’s mood. “When I walked out with her this afternoon, she took me to a sad spot.”

“What spot, Maisie?”

I looked down.

He shipped his oars and now addressed me with his full attention. “Tell it to me,” he said slowly.

I thought for a moment of her hands clasping mine above the narrow band of the wall beside the lonely grave, and I shivered.

“Maisie.” Papa did not look at me, but at the shoreline behind me. “I do know that Miss Grange once suffered a great loss.”

My head jerked up.

“Something grievous …” He paused.

“What do you mean, Papa?”

He shook his head and did not answer.

“What do you mean, Papa? Do you know something about Miss Grange?”

But he shook his head once more, this time more softly. “No, Maisie. I know nothing of her.”

One of the traps fell backward into the water with a soft plop, the lobsterman’s line playing out between his gloved hands.

“Tell me, Papa,” I blurted, “did she lose a child?”

I thought at first he had not heard me, so still did he remain. Not a flicker of life crossed his face. Then, straightening, he drew in the oars and regarded me.

“No,” he said. “No, she did not lose a child.”

“Well, I am sorry for her,” I mused into the water.

“No, Maisie. Never sorry.” Papa’s reply was rapid, almost hot in her defense. “You should not ever think of Miss Grange as a sorrowful figure.” And now he looked at me in earnest through the twilight. For the second time that day, I grew impatient. Papa was elliptical as Miss Grange herself, speaking out without saying a substantial thing.

“She was once a talent of great promise.”

“As an authoress?”