"Yes; I suppose you are right, Aunt Pat," said Helen pa.s.sively.

I went home feeling that my responsibilities had been greatly increased by Miss Pat's manifesto; on the whole I was relieved that she had not ordered a retreat, for it would have distressed me sorely to abandon the game at this juncture to seek a new hiding-place for my charges.

Long afterward Miss Pat's declaration of war rang in my ears. My heart leaps now as I remember it. And I should like to be a poet long enough to write A Ballade of All Old Ladies, or a lyric in their honor turned with the grace of Colonel Lovelace and blithe with the spirit of Friar Herrick. I should like to inform it with their beautiful tender sympathy that is quick with tears but readier with strength to help and to save; and it should reflect, too, the n.o.ble patience, undismayed by time and distance, that makes a virtue of waiting--waiting in the long twilight with folded hands for the ships that never come! Men old and battle-scarred are celebrated in song and story; but who are they to be preferred over this serene sisterhood? Let the worn mothers of the world be throned by the fireside or placed at comfortable ease in the shadow of hollyhocks and old-fashioned roses in familiar gardens; it matters little, for they are supreme in any company. Whoever would be gracious must serve them; whoever would be wise must sit at their feet and take counsel. Nor believe too readily that the increasing tide of years has quenched the fire in their souls; rather, it burns on with the steady flame of sanctuary lights. Lucky were he who could imprison in song those qualities that crown a woman's years--voicing what is in the hearts of all of us as we watch those gracious angels going their quiet ways, tending their secret altars of memory with flowers and blessing them with tears.

CHAPTER VIII

A LADY OF SHADOWS AND STARLIGHT

Still do the stars impart their light To those that travel in the night; Still time runs on, nor doth the hand Or shadow on the dial stand; The streams still glide and constant are: Only thy mind Untrue I find Which carelessly Neglects to be Like stream or shadow, hand or star.

--_William Cartwright_.

It was nine o'clock before Ijima came in, dripping from his tumble in the lake and his walk home through the rain. The Italian had made no effort to molest him, he reported; but he had watched the man row out to the _Stiletto_ and climb aboard. Ijima has an unbroken record of never having asked me a question inspired by curiosity. He may inquire which shoes I want for a particular morning, but _why, where_ and _when_ are unknown in his vocabulary. He was, I knew, fairly ent.i.tled to an explanation of the incident of the afternoon, though he would ask none, and when he had changed his clothes and reported to me in the library I told him in a word that there might be further trouble, and that I should expect him to stand night watch at St. Agatha's for a while, dividing a patrol of the grounds with the gardener. His "Yes, sir," was as calm as though I had told him to lay out my dress clothes, and I went with him to look up the gardener, that the division of patrol duty might be thoroughly understood.

I gave the Scotchman a revolver and Ijima bore under his arm a repeating rifle with which he and I had diverted ourselves at times in the pleasant practice of breaking gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s. I a.s.signed him the water-front and told the gardener to look out for intruders from the road. These precautions taken, I rang the bell at St. Agatha's and asked for the ladies, but was relieved to learn that they had retired, for the situation would not be helped by debate, and if they were to remain at St. Agatha's it was my affair to plan the necessary defensive strategy without troubling them. And I must admit here, that at all times, from the moment I first saw Helen Holbrook with her father at Red Gate, I had every intention of shielding her to the utmost. The thought of trapping her, of catching her, _flagrante delicto_, was revolting; I had, perhaps, a notion that in some way I should be able to thwart her without showing my own hand; but this, as will appear, was not to be so easily accomplished.

I went home and read for an hour, then got into heavy shoes and set forth to reconnoiter. The chief avenue of danger lay, I imagined, across the lake, and I pa.s.sed through St. Agatha's to see that my guards were about their business; then continued along a wooded bluff that rose to a considerable height above the lake. There was a winding path which the pilgrimages of school-girls in spring and autumn had worn hard, and I followed it to its crest, where there was a stone bench, established for the ease of those who wished to take their sunsets in comfort. The place commanded a fair view of the lake, and thence it was possible to see afar off any boat that approached St.

Agatha's or Glenarm. The wooded bluff was cool and sweet from the rain, and a clear light was diffused by the moon as I lighted my pipe and looked out upon the lake for signs of the _Stiletto_.

The path that rose through the wood from St. Agatha's declined again from the seat, and came out somewhere below, where there was a spring sacred to the school-girls, and where, I dare say, they still indulge in the incantations of their species. I amused myself picking out the pier lights as far as I had learned them, following one of the lake steamers on its zigzag course from Port Annandale to the village.

Around me the great elms and maples still dripped. Eleven chimed from the chapel clock, the strokes stealing up to me dreamily. A moment later I heard a step in the path behind me, light, quick, and eager, and I bent down low on the bench, so that its back shielded me from view, and waited. I heard the sharp swish of bent twigs in the shrubbery as they snapped back into place in the narrow trail, and then the voice of some one humming softly. The steps drew closer to the bench, and some one pa.s.sed behind me. I was quite sure that it was a woman--from the lightness of the step, the feminine quality in the voice that continued to hum a little song, and at the last moment the soft rustle of skirts. I rose and spoke her name before my eyes were sure of her.

"Miss Holbrook!" I exclaimed.

She did not cry out, though she stepped back quickly from the bench.

"Oh, it's you, Mr. Donovan, is it?"

"It most certainly is!" I laughed. "We seem to have similar tastes, Miss Holbrook."

"An interest in geography, shall we call it?" she chaffed gaily.

"Or astronomy! We will a.s.sume that we are both looking for the Little Dipper."

"Good!" she returned on my own note. "Between the affairs of the Holbrooks and your evening Dipper hunt you are a busy man, Mr. Donovan."

"I am not half so busy as you are, Miss Holbrook! It must tax you severely to maintain both sides of the barricade at the same time," I ventured boldly.

"That does require some ingenuity," she replied musingly, "but I am a very flexible character."

"But what will bend will break--you may carry the game too far."

"Oh, are you tired of it already?"

"Not a bit of it; but I should like to make this stipulation with you: that as you and I seem to be pitted against each other in this little contest, we shall fight it all out behind Miss Pat's back. I prefer that she shouldn't know what a--" and I hesitated.

"Oh, give me a name, won't you?" she pleaded mockingly.

"What a beautiful deceiver you are!"

"Splendid! We will agree that I am a deceiver!"

"If it gives you pleasure! You are welcome to all the joy you can get out of it!"

"Please don't be bitter! Let us play fair, and not stoop to abuse."

"I should think you would feel contrite enough after that ugly business of this afternoon. You didn't appear to be even annoyed by that Italian's effort to smash the launch."

She was silent for an instant; I heard her breath come and go quickly; then she responded with what seemed a forced lightness:

"You really think that was inspired by--" she suddenly appeared at a loss.

"By Henry Holbrook, as you know well enough. And if Miss Pat should be murdered through his enmity, don't you see that your position in the matter would be difficult to explain? Murder, my dear young woman, is not looked upon complacently, even in this remote corner of the world!"

"You seem given to the use of strong language, Mr. Donovan. Let us drop the calling of names and consider just where you put me."

"I don't put you at all; you have taken your own stand. But I will say that I was surprised, not to say pained, to find that you played the eavesdropper the very hour you came to Annandale."

A moment's silence; the water murmured in the reeds below; an owl hooted in the Glenarm wood; a restless bird chirped from its perch in a maple overhead.

"Oh, to be sure!" she said at last. "You thought I was listening while Aunt Pat unfolded the dark history of the Holbrooks."

"I knew it, though I tried to believe I was mistaken. But when I saw you there on Tippecanoe Creek, meeting your father at the canoe-maker's house, I was astounded; I did not know that depravity could go so far."

"My poor, unhappy, unfortunate father!" she said in a low voice; there was almost a moan in it.

"I suppose you defend your conduct on the ground of filial duty," I suggested, finding it difficult to be severe.

"Why shouldn't I? Who are you to judge our affairs? We are the unhappiest family that ever lived; but I should like you to know that it was not by my wish that you were brought into our councils. There is more in all this than appears!"

"There is nothing in it but Miss Pat--her security, her peace, her happiness. I am pledged to her, and the rest of you are nothing to me.

But you may tell your father that I have been in rows before and that I propose to stand by the guns."

"I shall deliver your message, Mr. Donovan; and I give you my father's thanks for it," she mocked.

"Your father calls you Rosalind--before strangers!" I remarked.

"Yes. It's a fancy of his," she murmured lingeringly. "Sometimes it's Viola, or Perdita, but, as I think of it, it's oftener Rosalind. I hope you don't object, Mr. Donovan?"

"No, I rather like it; it's in keeping with your variable character.

You seem p.r.o.ne, like Rosalind, to woodland wandering. I dare say the other people of the cast will appear in due season. So far I have seen only the Fool."

"The Fool? Oh, yes; there was Touchstone, wasn't there?"

"I believe it is admitted that there was."