Later, as she went to and fro about the house, Elizabeth peeped in more than once to see how Mr. Reynolds was faring in the workshop. She stood at the door, not daring to speak or to disturb him, so busy did he seem. His face looked white, deeply lined and very tired; never had he appeared to her so really old. He was toiling very earnestly so that she felt sure he must be gaining some comfort from his work. Once, however, when she looked in she did not see him. The far corners of the room were so very dim that he might be there among the shadows, but she did not like to go in to make sure. Miss Miranda called her for something at that moment and kept her longer than she expected. Later, when she went back to make sure of his absence before she mentioned it, she saw that he was at work again by the bench and she began to believe that she must have been mistaken. He was standing beneath the light, putting away a great array of tools in a drawer.
David, returning from his errand, came whistling up to the door.
“Are you sure you do not need a doctor?” he inquired anxiously.
Miss Miranda was certain that a doctor would only disturb and upset her father. She had broached the subject to him earlier and had found the idea so distressed him, that she had given it up.
“I met Michael when I came through the garden,” David told Betsey, “and when I let him know what had happened he seemed dreadfully upset. He just sat down on the bench and groaned out, ‘I knew that fellow would be coming here to make some mischief, but I never knew quite what it would be. And with me watching and watching for him, he slipped in just the same. I was certain just some such unlucky thing would happen, I have been feeling it this long time back.’ Poor Michael, he will probably be saying charms and repeating spells for good luck all night now.”
“Did you stay long enough on the wall to—to see anything?” Betsey asked hesitatingly.
“No,” he answered, “I waited minute after minute, but the Thing was so slow, and what you said had worried me too, so in the end I came away. I will have to try again.”
It was very late, so that David, after some lingering and wishing that he could be of service, took his leave, Betsey walking with him as far as the gate. Here, in the moonlight they came upon Michael, sitting on a three-legged stool, his pipe in his hand and the collar of his worn coat turned up against the dews of the spring night.
“It is best that I should just wait here for a while,” he explained. “I heard a step in the lane and was afraid that blackguard might be back again. Ah, what did I tell you?”
For a figure had come into the moonlit open and Donald Reynolds had laid a hand on the gate.