The hand that gave it to him trembled. It seemed the crown of all that Dunham should be with her the first time she approached the opened shutters.
In a couple of minutes he was pulling the light craft across the Basin.
"Do you think we can possibly get in?" asked Sylvia. "How I have wanted to get inside that mill!"
"Then we shall have to, that's all," replied her companion, his eyes on her absorbed face, above which the breeze was blowing a little mass of auburn curls. "I think if I stood in the boat, and you stood on my shoulders, you might reach a lower window."
"I hope it won't come to that," she answered; "but I am afraid the ladders will have rotted away. We may find people there. Why, we probably shall. I don't know why I haven't come down to earth enough to realize that only the owners could have opened the mill."
Dunham nodded. "They must have entered to open it, too. What man hath done, man can do. You shall get in, else what is the use of my being here? Say you're glad I'm here, Sylvia."
She nodded at him collectedly. "If you get me in, I will," she returned.
They found an upright ladder, weather-beaten but still strong, beside one of the posts. Dunham tied the boat, then began to climb up, Sylvia following, and in a minute more they stood inside the desolate building, where strips of sunlight patched the floor. It was deserted.
"Well?" questioned John, as the girl looked all about.
"I thought it would be like this," she answered. "Can we get up higher? There must be a fine view."