"Did ye aim ter stay an' eat ye some dinner?"
"I 'lowed I mout—ef so be I got asked."
"Well ye gits asked ter go on home, Bas. I'm askin' ye now—an' hereatter ye needn't bother yoreself ter be quite so neighbourly. Hit mout mek talk ef ye stayed away altogether—but stay away a heap more than what ye've been doin'."
The other rose with a darkening face.
"Does ye aim ter dictate ter me not only when an' whar's we fights our battles at, but every move I makes meanwhile?"
"I aims ter dictate ter ye how often ye comes on this place—an' I orders ye ter leave hit now. Thar's ther stile—an' ther highway's open ter ye. Begone!"
"What's become of Bas?" inquired the young wife a few minutes later, and her husband smiled with an artless and infectious good humour. "He hed ter be farin' on," came his placid response, "an' he asked me ter bid ye farewell fer him."
But to Bas Rowlett came the thought that if his own opportunities of keeping a surveillance over that house were to be circumscribed, he needed a watchman there in his stead.
In the first place, there was a paper somewhere under that roof bearing his signature which prudence required to be purloined. So long as it existed it hampered every move he made in his favourite game of intrigue. Also he had begun to wonder whether any one save Caleb Harper who was dead knew of that receipt he had given for the old debt. Bas had informed himself that, up to a week ago, it had not been recorded at the court house—and quite possibly the taciturn old man had never spoken of its nature to the girl. Caleb had mentioned to him once that the paper had been put for temporary safekeeping in an old "chist" in the attic, but had failed to add that it was Dorothy who placed it there.
Then one day Bas met Aaron Capper on the highway.