For a step was heard on the west porch and coming around to the glazed door.
"Go into that bedroom," said the lady quickly, pointing to an open door. "And don't be afraid."
It proved to be a boy distributing notices. As the lady went outside to pick the paper up she looked around casually. The ferry-boat was nearly in and several persons were hurrying down the pier to meet it. A man in a gray suit was standing on the sidewalk but a few feet from her west porch, looking as if he were undecided about something. As she turned to go in he raised his hat and spoke.
"I beg your pardon, madam, but I am looking for a lady and a little boy, friends of mine that I have got separated from. Perhaps you have—"
"I saw a lady and a little child pass here a few minutes ago," she said quietly. "Are they the ones down there on the pier? I don't see very well."
He looked in the direction indicated. A woman about Margaret's build with a child was hurrying toward the boat. With hasty thanks he started after them.
When Margaret, trembling, came out from the inner room the lady had taken a glass that she always kept on her window ledge and turned it on the man hurrying to the dock.
"What sort of looking man was this?" There was something about her quiet manner with its reserve force that quieted the frightened girl.
"He had a black mustache—a very long one—and wore a gray suit. I can't remember anything else."
"This is the one, I am sure. Well,—he asked me for information and I gave it to him. I should not have volunteered it ... Still, I am not sure but it was a falsehood, though it was the truth. I really suppose a thing can sometimes be both, don't you?... Here, your eyes are younger than mine—take the glass. Can you see him?"