"We-que-ton-sing is a lovely spot. These glimpses of the water are charming."
As they looked down toward the bay, her grasp on Philip's hand tightened. He looked up at her in wonderment and tried to draw away, but she held him as in a vise. At the entrance to the avenue, just turning into it was a man with a big mustache and a gray suit. She was sure it was the one she had seen at the Island House. He was headed toward her.
"Come, dearest! We must go. No, not that way." And with a hasty word to their surprised acquaintance of the bungalow, she hurried him down the walk leading to the railroad tracks, stopping to cast a glance behind her as she turned east. The man was sauntering up the walk, just as everybody did when they first came here—there was really nothing to alarm her—it was foolish of her to suppose that he was after them—but still, the corner turned she made Philip run to keep up with her in her haste. At the corner where the post office stands she turned down toward the hotel, but the boy seeing a squirrel across the street escaped from her grasp and ran after it. Calling him sharply Margaret followed. A glance back showed through the trees a glimpse of the gray suit and she hurried on.
As she caught up with Philip she found herself in front of a pretty cottage close to the walk with hanging baskets and rustic boxes filled with ferns around its many porches. A sweet-faced woman was sitting at a table writing. She looked up at the child with a smile, such a kind, gracious smile, that for a moment Margaret contemplated throwing herself on her mercy and begging shelter. But just then others came out upon the porch and the opportunity was past.
They had come now to the back of the yellow, square-built house that Mr. Harcourt had pointed out to her as a pioneer. She had noticed it often since. Philip, again catching sight of the squirrel in the clump of birches with the hemlock growing sociably in their midst, dashed after it, and Margaret after him. As she turned into the yard under the spreading beech trees and dodged behind them, a backward look showed her the man in the gray suit standing on the post office corner, looking as if he had lost a clue.
A tall lattice divided the back of this place from the front. In an instant Margaret had caught up Philip and dashed to the other side of it. She was leaning weakly against it and Philip saying, "Why, mama! what's the matter?" when a door opened in front of her and a tall lady in black appeared.
"Well?" she said in surprised interrogative which was not in the least aggressive. It was as if she only meant to understand before she passed judgment.
"I beg your pardon, madam, but my little b—my little girl ran into your yard after a squirrel and I came to get her. I—I feel very faint. Would you mind my sitting down?"
"Certainly not. Come in." She opened the door through which she had come out and Margaret, who had supposed the door led into the house, found herself on a long, broad porch at the side of the house and looking out upon the bay in front. There were curtains on the east side, and it was a homelike place with rugs and rocking chairs and tables and books. But to Margaret's excited imagination it was but a place where one could be spied out and trapped.
"You will find it more pleasant here nearer the front," the lady said, but the girl drew a chair into the furthest corner, saying something about the wind, and sat down with Philip held tightly in her arms. Then desperate with the fear that any moment might bring her enemy upon her, she asked in a choking voice,