And she did, hurrying with easy steps up the stony path. The kitten stayed behind, and that terrified Andria anew. She turned to follow Beryl, and her foot slipped. For a moment she fell on her knees, faint with pain; her face bent over the still water of the little pond that mirrored her clearly. The next second her heart seemed to die in her. There was more than her own face reflected in the water. Over her shoulder, leering, mouthing as if it jabbered at her, was a second face, so wild and dreadful that her throat grew shut and dry with fear. With her newborn instinct of facing an enemy, she wrenched herself round on her knees and scrambled to her feet. The space behind her was utterly empty! Even the wild kitten was gone. Not a rustle, a moving leaf, stirred the gorgeous shrubs anywhere, and yet she knew some one had vanished into them but now. That face that had leered at her from the water mirror had been no dream, but a dreadful reality. “Reflection can’t lie,” she thought. “And I saw it face to face with me.” She could scarcely move as she realized how close it must have been to her to have peered over her very shoulder. “Beryl!” She suddenly remembered the girl she had sworn to herself to take care of, and forgot her turned ankle as she raced after her. At the end of the path she almost sobbed with joy. There stood Beryl, fresh and lovely in the sunshine that flooded the open turfed lawns. Her face was quite careless and untroubled. “I won’t tell her,” Andria thought swiftly. “She’s seen nothing.” But even there in the open ground she made her charge walk in front of her all the way to the house, for fear of what might yet be behind them. Salome stood waiting at the door, and turned away as she saw them. “What on earth’s the matter with Salome?” Beryl said, laughing. “Andria, she was truly pale! She was gray!” But Andria said nothing. CHAPTER XIV. THE EYES OUTSIDE THE JALOUSY. The weather changed that afternoon. A high, hot wind blew from the southwest under a gray sky; the sea thundered on the beach below the house; and as Beryl looked out listlessly, rainlike waterspouts came thrashing down. “Hateful!” she said pettishly. “I was going out.” Andria, whose bruised foot ached, began to laugh. “You needn’t laugh! If you do I’ll go still,” she said, with babyish wilfulness. “It wasn’t that,” said the so-called governess; “it’s only this--do you know that we were supposed to do lessons, and there isn’t a sign of a book in the house! Not even a novel. Amelia Jane has half a Bible, and she says that’s the only book there is.” “I believe he’s just stuck us here to mold away and die,” returned Beryl quite calmly. “He didn’t care whether I learned anything or not, in spite of his grandfatherly ways. But I’m not going to mold or die either. I like the place!” she continued coolly. “I hope he’ll never come back.”