As I sat thus on the wall I heard the sound of angry voices back of me on the Glenarm side, and a crash of underbrush marked a flight and pursuit. I crouched down on the wall and waited. In a moment a man plunged through the wood and stumbled over a low-hanging vine and fell, not ten yards from where I lay. To my great surprise it was Morgan, my acquaintance of the morning. He rose, cursed his ill luck and, hugging the wall close, ran toward the lake. Instantly the pursuer broke into view. It was Bates, evidently much excited and with an ugly cut across his forehead. He carried a heavy club, and, after listening for a moment for sounds of the enemy, he hurried after the caretaker.

It was not my row, though I must say it quickened my curiosity. I straightened myself out, threw my legs over the school side of the wall and lighted a cigar, feeling cheered by the opportunity the stone barricade offered for observing the world.

As I looked off toward the little church I found two other actors appearing on the scene. A girl stood in a little opening of the wood, talking to a man. Her hands were thrust into the pockets of her covert coat; she wore a red tam-o’-shanter, that made a bright bit of color in the wood. They were not more than twenty feet away, but a wild growth of young maples lay between us, screening the wall. Their profiles were toward me, and the tones of the girl’s voice reached me clearly, as she addressed her companion. He wore a clergyman’s high waistcoat, and I assumed that he was the chaplain whom Bates had mentioned. I am not by nature an eavesdropper, but the girl was clearly making a plea of some kind, and the chaplain’s stalwart figure awoke in me an antagonism that held me to the wall.

“If he comes here I shall go away, so you may as well understand it and tell him. I shan’t see him under any circumstances, and I’m not going to Florida or California or anywhere else in a private car, no matter who chaperones it.”

“Certainly not, unless you want to—certainly not,” said the chaplain. “You understand that I’m only giving you his message. He thought it best—”

“Not to write to me or to Sister Theresa!” interrupted the girl contemptuously. “What a clever man he is!”

“And how unclever I am!” said the clergman, laughing. “Well, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to present his message.”