“I don’t feel very comfortable here myself,” he agreed, “and it is getting rather dark. Yes, it must be time to go.” They went along the path together to the gate without speaking, until, with his hand on the lock, David paused and looked back. “I am going back after it grows really dark,” he said, “to see what that thing is. It ought not to go on.” “Oh, no,” cried Elizabeth in real horror. “Oh, no!” “It is something that ought to be cleared up,” David insisted steadily. “If we don’t do it ourselves, we should tell some one who will. The place belongs to Miss Miranda and it should be looked after. Yes, I am going to see about it to-night.” “Then,” replied Elizabeth with a long and rather gasping breath, “if you will go, I am going with you.” They did not work very long at their respective tasks that evening. Betsey was an absent-minded helper as she put away the dishes and David, it appeared later, had dropped so many tools and needed to be told so many things twice over, that even Mr. Reynolds had grasped vaguely that something was not quite right and had stopped to gaze at him over his spectacles, in mild and pained astonishment. It was earlier than usual and just at the edge of real darkness, the soft, black dark of a warm spring night before the moon has risen, when David presented himself at the kitchen door for the ostensible purpose of taking Elizabeth home. With rather trembling hands she took off her apron and put away her towels, and prepared to go with him. But their plan was not to be carried out so easily, or without any hitch. “I will walk down the hill with you,” announced Miss Miranda with somewhat disconcerting suddenness. “I have some things to take to Mrs. Donovan at the foot of the lane. I promised her some of my cabbage plants.” “We will take them,” chorused the two conspirators, speaking together with such promptness that any one less preoccupied than Miss Miranda might have guessed that some project was on foot. “No, I must see her myself,” she persisted and set out with them, to their ill-concealed dismay. “It is not very late and we can come back after she has left us,” David found opportunity to say before Miss Miranda joined them with the cabbage plants. They went down the hill without much of their usual talking and laughter, for Miss Miranda appeared absorbed in her own thoughts, and her two companions, perhaps a little appalled by their undertaking, seemed to have not much to say. They bade her good-night at Mrs. Donovan’s door with suspicious alacrity and, having seen it safely closed, turned once more up the lane. By David’s advice they were to pass the cottage, climb higher up the hill and find the spot where the boundary wall was nearest the ruins of the house. “If we wait by the pool,” he explained, “we might not see anything. It might not come near, whatever It is.”