“There’s a good range in the House of the Five Pines,” I hastened to add, “and everything is convenient.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again without speaking.
“You can stay all night with me,” I hurried on, before she had the courage to refuse, “and we can work all evening.”
Mrs. Dove was flustered, but at last had an excuse. “Why, I don’t know whatever in the world Will would say!” she answered, “I ain’t used to going out nights, unless it’s to nurse somebody—”
I took hold of both of her hands, much to her embarrassment. “Mrs. Dove,” I said, “pretend you are nursing me. The truth is, I’m afraid to stay alone. To-morrow my husband will return. I’ll promise you, this is the very last night.”
She drew back like a shy girl. “If that’s the case, I guess Will will leave me come over.”
I drew a breath of relief. That settled that. I began to enjoy the scenery.
We had passed the last straggling house, and, following the pike down the cape, had come to a high, wide part of it where the dunes were covered with coarse grass and bordered little fresh-water lakes. Leaving the main road for a path between the rushes, we came to a height which commanded a view of the sea in all directions—before us, to the left, where the backbone of the cape turned east to the mainland, and behind us, where it rounded northwest toward the outside lighthouse. Three miles of moors separated us from its deep blue, but it looked almost as close as the bay on our immediate right. At our feet was a fourth bit of water, Pink Pond, where lilies were cut in the summer and ice in the winter, a bright blue sheet bordered with tall brown cat-tails. Far away, on the outside sea, jetties of suspended smoke marked the passing of an invisible ocean liner; near at hand, in the bay, rocked the fishing-boats; and at the entrance to Star Harbor a government cruiser was turning its gray nose northward.
I remembered my sailor, whom I had promised to meet at three o’clock this afternoon, but even as I wished that I might in some way take advantage of his eagerness to help me smoke burst out of the black funnels and the cruiser glided past the point. The sailor would have to pursue his investigations of the psychic in some other port.
“Pretty, ain’t it?” said Mrs. Dove. “The beach-plums is further on.”