We were both silent as we watched it; then I turned to the girl, who bent her head a moment, tucking the handkerchief a trifle more securely into her sleeve. She smiled quizzically, with a compression of the lips. "The view here is fine, isn't it?" We regarded each other with entire good humor. I heard Miss Pat within, slowly crossing the bare floor of the gallery. "You are incomparable!" I exclaimed. "Verily, a daughter of Janus has come among us!" "The best pictures are outdoors, after all," commented Miss Pat; and after a further ramble about the house they returned to St. Agatha's, whence we were to drive together to Annandale in half an hour. I went to the stone water-tower and scanned the movements of the _Stiletto_ with a glass while I waited. The sloop was tacking slowly away toward Annandale, her skipper managing his sheet with an expert hand. It may have been the ugly business in which the pretty toy was engaged, or it may have been the lazy deliberation of her oblique progress over the water, but I felt then and afterward that there was something sinister in every line of the _Stiletto_. The more I deliberated the less certain I became of anything that pertained to the Holbrooks; and I tested my memory by repeating the alphabet and counting ten, to make sure that my wits were still equal to such exercises. We drove into Annandale without incident and with no apparent timidity on Miss Pat's part. Helen was all amiability and cheer. I turned perforce to address her now and then, and was ashamed to find that the lurking smile about her lips, and a challenging light in her eyes, woke no resentment in me. The directness of her gaze was in itself disconcerting; there was no heavy-lidded insolence about her: her manner suggested a mischievous child who hides your stick and with feigned interest aids your search for it in impossible places. I left Miss Pat and Helen at the general store while I sought the hardware merchant with a list of trifles required for Glenarm. I was detained some time longer than I had expected, and in leaving I stood for a moment on the platform before the shop, gossiping with the merchant of village affairs. I glanced down the street to see if the ladies had appeared, and observed at the same time my team and wagon standing at the curb in charge of the driver, just as I had left them.