One more minute and that hidden figure would move across the moon, but she had no thought for that mystery now. She jumped down outside the wall and ran, ran with all breathless speed, stumbling in the thick grass and over jutting roots and stones until she came out at last into the moonlit lane. Her heart was thumping against her side and Miss Miranda’s gate looked very far. She sped down the hill with no further thought of what she and David had gone out to find; it was no time to be spying on goblins when this much-dreaded and very real person was so near. CHAPTER IX THE SUBSTANCE OF A DREAM Scarcely even for a passing glance did Elizabeth pause at the front door of the cottage although it stood open, as Miss Miranda had left it, with the lamp still burning cheerfully on her sewing table inside. Weary and breathless, she stumbled along the path, turned the corner of the house, and saw the brightly lighted workshop with its door also standing open to the warmth of the night. It was as she thought, the stranger was here, sitting on the high stool beside the table, talking volubly, thrusting forward his long-chinned, dark face and pounding on his knee to give emphasis to what he said. Mr. Reynolds sat opposite in the one arm chair the place afforded, looking white and frail and old in contrast to his visitor, very quiet, and listening with earnest attention. Like an image of carved ebony, Dick sat immovable on one of the posts of the back of the chair. The green-shaded light, with its brilliant, narrow circle of illumination, showed nothing else clearly, but gave only faint vision of wheels and pulleys, of shining glints that sparkled back from polished steel or ruddy copper, while through the whole room droned the slow song of turning wheels. There was a step on the flagstones behind Elizabeth just before she mounted the doorstep. As she had hoped, David had followed her. Both men glanced up as the boy and girl entered, but there was no pause in the talk, since any new presence seemed to make no impression on the tenseness of the scene. Even Dick scarcely turned his head as he sat like some brooding spirit above his master. “Can’t you stop those infernal wheels?” Donald Reynolds said, as they came in. “I cannot hear my own voice with them grinding away in my ears.” “David!” said the older man in tone of request. With quick obedience, David stepped to the end of the room, pulled a lever, jerked a protesting, crackling switch and brought the whirring song to an end. Without the familiar sound the place seemed uncannily silent as Donald went on talking. To the presence of David and Betsey he gave no heed, having apparently but one thought, to speak the words he had come to say before Miss Miranda should return.