His uneasiness, after spoiling his night's sleep, took him to the Farms the next afternoon. Madam Carroll received him in the drawing-room. She offered an excuse for Miss Carroll; it seemed that she had a headache. But on his way out the clergyman distinctly saw the shadow of a man thrown across the dining-room floor by the bright sunshine shining through the western windows. It might not be the shadow of Dupont, of course; he was ashamed of himself for his quick suspicion. It might be that of some other visitor, or of one of their poor pensioners, or of Caleb Inches. But no masculine visitor came to the Farms at this hour save, now and then, the junior warden, whose small figure never cast shadow like that; and all the pensioners of whom he had knowledge were women. He decided that, of course, it was Inches; and then, on his way down Carroll Lane, he met Inches coming up. Still, it was but a supposition. He forced himself to cast it aside. Chance, however, seemed determined to disturb him, for she soon threw in his way other knowledge, and this not a shadow, but reality. He caught a glimpse of Sara Carroll turning into a little-used path, which led up the mountain to a fir-wood. His own road (he was on horseback, as usual, on his way to a mission station) led him by Walley's Cove, and here, fifteen minutes later, he distinctly saw the figure of Louis Dupont entering the same wood at its upper edge, and by the path which would bring him directly to her, the same path she herself was following. Owen's trouble now took complete possession of him; up to this time he had fought it off. He felt that he ought to do something, to act. Dupont was a dissipated, erratic adventurer, whose history no one knew. Should he let this proud, fastidious, delicate-minded girl fall into such a vulgar trap as this? Before his eyes, within reach of his hand? Yet there it was again--if she were in reality as proud and fastidious as he had supposed her to be (and he had thought her the proudest girl he had ever known), how could she, of her own accord, endure Louis Dupont? At one time she had not endured him. There had been a memorable moment when the expression of her eyes (how well he remembered it!) had been unmistakable; the moment when he had met her, coming from the drawing-room, with that alluring voice floating forth behind her. What could have changed her--changed her so completely as this?