He observed that a great change had come over her. Instead of being nerveless and lifeless, as he had left her, with dull eyes and weak, helpless limbs, she was now agitated, excited; she glanced nervously about her while he spoke, and tapped the finger-tips of one hand restlessly with those of the other as she listened. "I know," she replied, rapidly, "I know I was. But--Granny has come back. She came in while you were gone." Max glanced at the wall, where he had fancied he saw the pair of watching eyes. "Oh," said he, "that explains what I saw, perhaps. Where is your grandmother?" "She has gone upstairs to her room under the roof." "Ah! Are you sure she is upstairs? That she is not in the next room, for instance, watching me through some secret peep-hole of hers?" The girl stared at him in silence as he pointed to the wall, and as he ran his hand over its surface. "I saw a pair of eyes watching me just now," he went on, "from the middle of this wall. I could swear to it!" The girl looked incredulous, and passed her hand over the wall in her turn. Then she shook her head. "I can feel nothing," said she. "It must be your fancy. There is no room there. It is the ground-floor of an old warehouse next door which has been to let for years and years--longer than this." He still looked doubtful, and she added, sharply: "You can see for yourself if you like." As she spoke, she was turning to go back into the outhouse, with a sign to him to follow her. But even as she did so, another thought must have struck her, for she shut the door and turned back again. "No," she said, decisively, "of course you don't want to see anything so much as the outside of this gloomy old house. Don't think me ungrateful; I am not, but"--she came a little nearer to Max, so that she could whisper very close to his ear--"if Granny knew that I'd let a stranger into the place while she was away, I should never hear the last of it; and--and--when she's angry I'm afraid of her." Max felt a pang of compassion for the girl. "If you are afraid of her being angry," said he, "you had better let her see me and hear my explanation. I can make things right with her. I have great powers of persuasion--with old ladies--I assure you; and you don't look as if you were equal to a strife of tongues with her or with anybody just now; and I'd forgotten; I've brought something for you." Max took from the pocket of his overcoat the little flat bottle filled with brandy with which he had provided himself; but the girl pushed it away with alarm. "Don't let Granny see it!" she whispered. "All right. But I want you to taste it; it will do you good." She shook her head astutely. "I am not ill," she said, shortly, "and I don't know that I should take it if I were. I see too much of those things not to be afraid of them. And, now, sir, will you go?" After a short pause she added, in an ominous tone--"while you have the chance."