Some hours later the door opened again, and one of the two men reappeared. Peering first cautiously right and left, he locked the door behind him and stole hurriedly up the steps. The figure of this man is assuredly that of Lawrence Lee, but strangely unlike his light bright step is that stumbling, swaying gait; and can that ashen white face, those eyes startled and staring, as if they had met some fearful thing, indeed be his? And where is Rumbold? CHAPTER VI. SOMETHING IN THE WATER. One thing only was quite certain, that the maltster was to be seen next morning at the usual hour among his men. As for Lawrence Lee, whatever Rumbold had confided to him remained a secret as far as the nature of it was concerned. To hide, however, from Ruth that something was amiss with him was a more difficult task, and he had failed in it. During these last weeks, moreover, the Rye House had grown into a very prison of dulness. Rumbold, always a sombre and taciturn man, had come to be like a stone statue moving about the place, never speaking but when absolutely compelled. The recollection of all this, and of the events of the past day, crowd bewilderingly now upon Ruth's mind, as she sits, with her chin resting upon her hand, gazing out into the night, from which the young May moon is slowly fading. Only a few stars cheer the surrounding darkness, excepting yonder where the yellow lamp-light streams through the close-drawn curtains of the guest-parlour window of the King's Arms. [Sidenote: A cure for care.] Many a summer evening, when Mistress Sheppard's guests tarried as late as this, Ruth could remember catching the echoes of merry laughter and snatches of songs from that window; but though the night was warm as a July one, not a sound was to be heard save the low hooting of the owls and the gurgling of the water in the moat. She stretched her head from the window, to listen for the familiar sound of her father's heavy footfall up the wicket-path. How late he stayed! And Lawrence? had he gone home yet in his boat? Surely. And yet--ah! well. What was it all to her? Why vex her head about it? Why not go to sleep and forget her fancies? Fancy! were those dark cloaked figures fancy forsooth? Like some evil dreams, indeed, they haunted her mind. And that flash of cruel steel blue light? No fancy that. But what concern could it be of Ruth's? Why, a turn of her wheel would dispel it all. There is no remedy like a little bit of diligent work for troublesome thoughts, or even sad ones. How provoking that the stupid thing had not a shred of flax in it! There it stood in its corner, a beautiful wheel of ebony inlaid with ivory, her father's gift last birthday, but like a fair body without a soul, destitute of the flax. How she could have worked away by the light of the stars which were so brilliant that lamp-light would be an utter superfluity--if only the flax had been to hand! [Sidenote: Out in the moonlight.]