"The Celtic temperament is very susceptible. You have undoubtedly likened many eyes to the glory of the heavens."
"I swear--"
"Swear not at all!"
"Then I won"t!"--and we laughed and were silent while the water rippled in the reeds, the insects wove their woof of sound and ten struck musically from St. Agatha"s.
"I must leave you."
"If you go you leave an empty world behind."
"Oh, that was pretty!"
"Thank you!"
"Conceited! I wasn"t approving your remark, but that meteor that flashed across the sky and dropped into the woods away out yonder."
"Alas! I have fallen farther than the meteor and struck the earth harder."
"You deserved it," she said, rising and drawing the veil about her throat.
"My lack of conceit has always been my undoing; I am the humblest man alive. You are adorable," I said, "if that"s the answer."
"It isn"t the answer! If mere stars do this to you, what would you be in moonlight?"
As we stood facing each other I was aware of some new difference in her. Perhaps her short outing skirt of dark blue had changed her; and yet in our tramps through the woods and our excursions in the canoe she had worn the same or similar costumes. She hesitated a moment, leaning against the railing and tapping the floor with her boot; then she said gravely, half questioningly, as though to herself:
"He has gone away; you are quite sure that he has gone away?"
"Your father is probably in New York," I answered, surprised at the question. "I do not expect him back at once."
"If he should come back--" she began.
"He will undoubtedly return; there is no debating that."
"If he comes back there will be trouble, worse than anything that has happened. You can"t understand what his return will mean to us--to me."
"You must not worry about that; you must trust me to take care of that when he comes. "Sufficient unto the day" must be your watchword. I saw Gillespie to-night."
"Gillespie?" she repeated with unfeigned surprise.
"That was capitally acted!" I laughed. "I wish I knew that he meant nothing more to you than that!" I added seriously.
She colored, whether with anger or surprise at my swift change of tone, I did not know. Then she said very soberly:
"Mr. Gillespie is nothing to me whatever."
"I thank you for that!"
"Thank me for nothing, Mr. Donovan. And now good night. You are not to follow me--"
"Oh, surely to the gate!"
"Not even to the gate. My ways are very mysterious. By day I am one person; by night quite another. And if you should follow me--"
"To my own gate!" I pleaded. "It"s only decent hospitality!" I urged.
"Not even to the Gate of Dreams!"
"But in trying to get back to the school you have to pa.s.s the guards; you will fail at that some time!"
"No! I whisper an incantation, and lo! they fall asleep upon their spears. And I must ask you--"
"Keep asking, for to ask you must stay!"
"--please, when I meet you in daytime do not refer to anything that we may say when we meet at night. You have proved me at every point--even to this spot of ink on my forehead," and she put her forefinger upon the peak. "I am Helen Holbrook; but as--what shall I say?--oh, yes!"
she went on lightly--"as a psychological fact, I am very different at night from anything I ever am in daylight. And to-morrow morning, when you meet me with Aunt Pat in the garden, if you should refer to this meeting I shall never appear to you again, not even through the Gate of Dreams. Good night!"
"Good night!"
I clasped her hand for an instant, and she met my eyes with a laughing challenge.
"When shall I see you again--this you that is so different from the you of daylight?"
She caught her hand away and turned to go, but paused at the steps.
"When the new moon hangs, like a little feather, away out yonder, I shall be looking at it from the stone seat on the bluff; do you think you can remember?"
She vanished away into the wood toward St. Agatha"s. I started to follow, but paused, remembering my promise, and sat down and yielded myself to the thought of her. Practical questions of how she managed to slip out of St. Agatha"s vexed me for a moment; but in my elation of spirit I dismissed them quickly enough. I would never again entertain an evil thought of her; the money she had taken from Gillespie I would in some way return to him and make an end of any claim he might a.s.sert against her by reason of that help. And I resolved to devote myself diligently to the business of protecting her from her father. I was even impatient for him to return and resume his blackguardly practice of intimidating two helpless women, that I might deal with him in the spirit of his own despicable actions.
My heart was heavy as I thought of him, but I lighted my pipe and found at once a gentler glory in the stars. Then as I stared out upon the lake I saw a shadow gliding softly away from the little promontory where St. Agatha"s pier lights shone brightly. It was a canoe, I should have known from its swift steady flight if I had not seen the paddler"s arm raised once, twice, until darkness fell upon the tiny argosy like a cloak. I ran out on the pier and stared after it, but the silence of the lake was complete. Then I crossed the strip of wood to St. Agatha"s, and found Ijima and the gardener faithfully patrolling the grounds.
"Has any one left the buildings to-night?"
"No one."
"Sister Margaret hasn"t been out--or any one?"
"No one, sir. Did you hear anything, sir?"
"Nothing, Ijima. Good night."
I wrote a telegram to an acquaintance in New York who knows everybody, and asked him to ascertain whether Henry Holbrook, of Stamford, was in New York. This I sent to Annandale, and thereafter watched the stars from the terrace until they slipped into the dawn, fearful lest sleep might steal away my memories and dreams of the night.
CHAPTER XIV