Bob came on Tuesday evening and again Foster Townsend left the young people alone in the library. The stay this time was longer. He came again on Friday and on the following Tuesday. Townsend said nothing, but he thought a good deal. He began to wish that he had followed his own inclination and forbidden the pair of young idiots to see each other at all. His questions to Esther, put very guardedly, seemed to warrant the belief that, so far at least, her feeling toward Griffin was merely that of friendship; but friendship at that age was dangerous. It must be broken off--and soon. CHAPTER X Mrs. Carter had not yet replied to his letter. He wrote another, stating his case more succinctly and intimating that he expected compliance with his wishes. He even dropped a hint concerning her obligation to him, something he had never done before. “It may upset your plans a little,” he wrote, “and I suppose you feel that you can’t shut up that house of yours and turn your other lodgers adrift. Well, I don’t ask you to do that. Find some one who can handle the craft while you are away and I will pay the bill. I have heard you say that it was the dream of your life to go where I am planning to send you. Here is your dream come true. You like the girl and she likes you. You are the only one in sight that I should feel safe to trust as skipper of a cruise like this one, with her aboard. You have always declared that, if ever you could do anything for me, you would do it if it killed you. Well, this won’t kill you. It may do you good. If anything can shake the reefs out of that Boston canvas of yours I should say this might be the thing. You will sail freer afterwards and you will have something to talk about besides the gilding on the State House dome. Let me hear from you right away.” He did not hear, however. Another week passed and he had not heard. Bob Griffin called twice more during that week. And on Sunday, after service, while Foster Townsend stood on the church steps chatting with Captain Ben Snow, from the corner of his eye he saw Esther and Bob talking together and noticed, quite as clearly, the significant glances and whisperings of his fellow worshipers as they, too, watched the pair. Harniss was beginning to talk, of course. Neighbors had seen Griffin entering the yard of the mansion evening after evening. Curious eyes had remained open later than was their custom to note the hour at which he left that yard. And they were noting that, whereas the said hour was in the beginning as early as nine-thirty, it was now ten-thirty or, on one occasion, close to eleven. “What is Cap’n Foster thinking about?” people wanted to know. “Elisha Cook’s grandson coming to _that_ house! Doesn’t the Cap’n realize what is going on? If he don’t somebody ought to tell him.”