"Nothing important," replied Paul, pushing back the sheet of paper. The visitor shook hands; then he seated himself, astride, on one of the bar-room chairs, facing the wooden back, which he hugged tightly. He had come to talk about Paul's Clay County iron; he had one or two ideas about it which he thought might come to something. Paul, too, thought that they might come to something when he heard what they were. He was excited; he began to jot down figures on the envelope which he had intended for Eve. Finally he and the new-comer went out together; before going he put the letter in his pocket. When he came in, it was late. "First mail to Port aux Pins?" he inquired. "Five o'clock to-morrow morning," replied the drowsy waiter. "Must finish it to-night, then," he thought. He took out the crumpled sheet, and, opening it, read through what he had written. "What was it I was going to add?" He tried to recall the train of thought. But he was sleepy (as Hollis said, Paul had a genius for sleep); besides, his mind was occupied by the new business plan. "I haven't the slightest idea what I was going to say.--A clear profit of fifty thousand in four years; that isn't bad. Ferdie will need a good deal. Ye-ough!" (a yawn). "What _was_ it I was going to say?--I can't imagine. Well, it couldn't have been important, in any case. I'll just sign it, and let it go." So he wrote, "Yours sincerely, Paul Tennant;" and went to bed. XXI. PAUL came back to Port aux Pins five days before the time of his departure for the South. Cicely was still there. She had refused to go to St. Paul. "The only Paul I care for is the one here. What an i-dea, Eve, that I should choose just this moment for a trip! It looks as though you were trying to keep me away from him." "I'm not trying; it's Paul," Eve might have answered. "It must be curious to be such a cold sort of person as you are," Cicely went on, looking at her. "You have only one feeling that ever gives you any trouble, haven't you? That's anger." "I am never angry with you," Eve answered, with the humility which she always showed when Cicely made her cutting little speeches. Paul had been right. As the time of his departure for Romney drew near, Cicely grew restless. She was seized with fits of wild weeping. At last, when there were only two days left, Paul proposed a drive--anything to change, even if only upon the surface, the current of her thoughts. "We will go to Betsy Lake, and pay a visit to the antiquities." The mine at Betsy Lake--the Lac aux Becs-Scies of the early Jesuit explorers--had been abandoned. Recently traces of work there in prehistoric times had been discovered, with primitive tools which excited interest in the minds of antiquarians. The citizens of Port aux Pins were not antiquarians; they said "Mound Builders;" and troubled themselves no more about it. "We had better spend the night at the butter-woman's," Paul suggested. "It is too far for one day."