“Why?” he said vacantly. “I shouldn’t fancy her for a mate, that’s all. Mostly temper in a face makes a man hot to look at it, but hers turns one cold. It’s my opinion he’s hooked a fish this time that’s one too many for him. He looks as if he’d like to shake her off, and can’t, and is mortal afeard of being pulled in himself. They’re up and down the river these three days--up and down. She might, for all the love that’s lost between ’em, be in another boat, and he bursting himself trying to pull away from her. Ho-ho! It’s a queer start--and here they come, too!” Gilead sat up. They had reached the withy-bed, and suddenly round the counter of the big dismantled houseboat shot the skiff with the man and woman in it. It would have moved faster than before in any case going down-stream; but no normal pace appeared sufficient for the rower, who sculled with a fury that seemed to make the planks of the frail craft stretch and gape. From time to time, since his companion sat without movement not steering, he would turn his head to snatch a course; and it was in one of these glances that, when close upon it, he saw the other boat. As instantly as in the morning he stopped. The skiff sped past and in a moment was twenty astern. “If he asked my advice I should say a liver-pill,” said the boatman. “Did you see his face, sir?” Gilead nodded. How could he have failed to--or that other, the face of last night? It had not looked at him; its eyes, he had seen, were fixed unwinkingly on the livid mask before them. But there had been the same expression of startled resentment, the same suggestion of obstinate importunateness, the same frowning vertical line between the brows, the same full lower lip, so full and so scarlet that it might have stood for a vampire’s gorged with blood. “Hullo!” said the boatman; “he’s turning, by his looks, to come after us!” He put his back into his work; but sure enough, sturdily as he pulled, the skiff overhauled them. More than half way up the withy-bed it passed, hugging the shore, so that the faces were sunk in shadow. “Keep it up,” said Gilead. “I want you to take me to the _Dragonfly_.” He had made up his mind in that moment. After all, Cicely Fleming had sought the help of the Agency, and was entitled to its advice and, if necessary, its protection. He could not altogether ignore that shadowy appeal. It must have portended something, and it would be base to turn away, leaving it unquestioned. The boatman bending to his task, the skiff gained so little on them that at the last reach, coming out into the open to avoid the rushes, it was a bare fifty yards ahead as it made straight for the pale-green houseboat lying solitary on the water. But it had kept, and even increased its lead a little as it ran home and the man leapt on board and disappeared into the saloon.