“If so be you gentlemen could put up with a drop of Scotch and soda, it’d save me boilin’ the kettle.” We agreed to put up with the substitute, and he went off. We said little during the old man’s absence. I felt relieved that Kee did not insist on going into the house, and I sat looking about at the beautiful though gloomy landscape. Yet, viewed from the porch, it was not so bad. The flower beds gave enough colour, and the near-by trees were mostly white birch, with their graceful shapes and pale, lovely trunks. Yet between us and the lake was a solid wall of dark, dense woodland that shut off all view of the outer world and shut in the Island and its buildings and people. “I can’t see why Alma likes this place,” I said, in a low voice. “She doesn’t seem at all morbid or despondent herself.” “Do you know her?” Keeley asked me, and I suddenly realized that I didn’t know her at all! But, I promised myself, that was a defect that time should remedy and that, I hoped, soon. From where I sat, I could see into the house through a window. I looked into the same room we had been in the other day I had called here, the day when Merry had told us if we were men to let the poor girl alone. As I looked, not curiously, only idly, I saw the old man, Merivale, come into the room and adjust a record and then turn on a victrola. The strains of Raff’s Cavatina floated out to us, and Kee gave a little smile of enjoyment. A moment later, Merivale appeared with glasses on a tray, and I said, pleasantly, “Your music sounds fine, out here on the lake.” He looked up suddenly, saw the open window and frowned. “That Katy!” he exclaimed. “She’s forever turnin’ on that machine! Do you mind it, sir?” He looked anxiously at Kee. “No,” was the reply, but I marvelled as to why this cheerful old liar should put the blame on poor, innocent Katy, for a deed that I had seen him do himself. CHAPTER XIII AS TO TUESDAY AFTERNOON And then Alma came home. I watched her as she paddled her canoe, with long, clear-cut strokes, and I remembered what Billy Dean had said about her paddling being unmistakable. Perhaps this was an exaggeration, but surely her method was that of an expert. She brought the pretty, graceful craft to a landing and sprang out, followed more leisurely by the gaunt figure of the ever-watchful Merry. She wore an exceedingly becoming sports costume of white with borderings of black, and a little white felt hat with a black cockade. I watched her as she came nearer and I realized anew that this was the one girl in the world for me. And I knew, too, that she needed a friend, needed some one to lean on, in the ordeal that was ahead of her. For whatever the outcome of the inquest, she faced new responsibilities and burdens in the adjustment of her uncle’s estate.