He seldom left his own premises. Between meals, and sometimes until late into the night, the professor lived in his laboratory, reading and experimenting. The white smock he wore while thus engaged had become much more familiar to him than evening dress.
Yet after dinner on this evening Ralph was surprised to see his uncle, arrayed in the prescribed garments for an evening call (and rather rusty they were, for Mrs. Mallow, the housekeeper, knew little about grooming a man, and their old valet, Jerome, was purblind and fairly tottering with age), march across the two lawns to the Nicholet house.
Ralph himself was seriously considering the journey which he had already hinted to Lorna he purposed taking. He was not saying anything about it at home, for he feared his Uncle Henry and his Cousin Luce would object. He was determined, however, not to waste the entire summer in loafing about Clay Head and the Twin Rocks Light.
Ralph planned for this escape from home entanglements just as another and lighter-minded young fellow might have schemed for some forbidden spree. He packed his steamer trunk in secret.
Professor Endicott came to the dimly lit veranda of the Nicholet house, which overlooked the starlit bay. The white beam of the Twin Rocks Light was flung far seaward. Its illumination did nothing to abate the pale rays of the stars which glittered on the ruffled water of the almost land-locked harbor.
A figure in white, quietly swaying in a basket rocker, leaned forward to distinguish the man's features.
"Henry! Professor Endicott! Come up. You are an unexpected caller."
"Er—yes, Miss Ida. I am not very neighborly in my habits, I acknowledge. So busy—always. You know. Er—is John in his room?"
"My brother has gone to Boston," said Miss Ida, pushing a light chair toward him with her neatly slippered foot. "Will you sit down, Professor Endicott?"
"Thanks, Miss Ida. Has John gone for any length of time?"