I called, stammering incoherently, after her, but her light argosy skimmed the water steadily. The paddle rose and fell with trained precision, making scarcely a ripple as she stole softly away toward the fairy towers of the sunset. I stood looking after her, goaded with self-contempt. A glory of yellow and red filled the west. Suddenly the wind moaned in the wood behind the line of cottages, swept over me and rippled the surface of the lake. I watched its flight until it caught her canoe and I marked the flimsy craft’s quick response, as the shaken waters bore her alert figure upward on the swell, her blade still maintaining its regular dip, until she disappeared behind a little peninsula that made a harbor near the school grounds.

The red tam-o’-shanter seemed at last to merge in the red sky, and I turned to my canoe and paddled cheerlessly home.

CHAPTER VII

THE MAN ON THE WALL

I was so thoroughly angry with myself that after idling along the shores for an hour I lost my way in the dark wood when I landed and brought up at the rear door used by Bates for communication with the villagers who supplied us with provender. I readily found my way to the kitchen and to a flight of stairs beyond, which connected the first and second floors. The house was dark, and my good spirits were not increased as I stumbled up the unfamiliar way in the dark, with, I fear, a malediction upon my grandfather, who had built and left incomplete a house so utterly preposterous. My unpardonable fling at the girl still rankled; and I was cold from the quick descent of the night chill on the water and anxious to get into more comfortable clothes. Once on the second floor I felt that I knew the way to my room, and I was feeling my way toward it over the rough floor when I heard low voices rising apparently from my sitting-room.

It was pitch dark in the hall. I stopped short and listened. The door of my room was open and a faint light flashed once into the hall and disappeared. I heard now a sound as of a hammer tapping upon wood-work.

Then it ceased, and a voice whispered:

“He’ll kill me if he finds me here. I’ll try again tomorrow. I swear to God I’ll help you, but no more now—”

Then the sound of a scuffle and again the tapping of the hammer. After several minutes more of this there was a whispered dialogue which I could not hear.