She vanished away into the wood toward St. Agatha's. I started to follow, but paused, remembering my promise, and sat down and yielded myself to the thought of her. Practical questions of how she managed to slip out of St. Agatha's vexed me for a moment; but in my elation of spirit I dismissed them quickly enough. I would never again entertain an evil thought of her; the money she had taken from Gillespie I would in some way return to him and make an end of any claim he might assert against her by reason of that help. And I resolved to devote myself diligently to the business of protecting her from her father. I was even impatient for him to return and resume his blackguardly practice of intimidating two helpless women, that I might deal with him in the spirit of his own despicable actions. My heart was heavy as I thought of him, but I lighted my pipe and found at once a gentler glory in the stars. Then as I stared out upon the lake I saw a shadow gliding softly away from the little promontory where St. Agatha's pier lights shone brightly. It was a canoe, I should have known from its swift steady flight if I had not seen the paddler's arm raised once, twice, until darkness fell upon the tiny argosy like a cloak. I ran out on the pier and stared after it, but the silence of the lake was complete. Then I crossed the strip of wood to St. Agatha's, and found Ijima and the gardener faithfully patrolling the grounds. "Has any one left the buildings to-night?" "No one." "Sister Margaret hasn't been out--or any one?" "No one, sir. Did you hear anything, sir?" "Nothing, Ijima. Good night." I wrote a telegram to an acquaintance in New York who knows everybody, and asked him to ascertain whether Henry Holbrook, of Stamford, was in New York. This I sent to Annandale, and thereafter watched the stars from the terrace until they slipped into the dawn, fearful lest sleep might steal away my memories and dreams of the night. CHAPTER XIV BATTLE ORCHARD We crossed the lake from the south and about nightfall came to the small island called Battle Orchard, which is so named by the American settlers from the peach, apple and other trees planted there about 1740 (so many have told me) by François Belot, a French voyageur who had crossed from the Ouabache on his way from Quebec to Post Vincennes near the Ohio, and, finding the beaver plentiful, brought there his family. And here the Indians laid siege to him; and here he valiantly defended the ford on the west side of the little isle for three days, killing many savages before they slew him.--_The Relation of Captain Abel Tucker_.