"Well, as far as that goes, you may make your mind perfectly easy. No one has access to the little quay or wharf but the people in Crawford's House. The rest of the property is lying idle, and from what I have seen of the Layards they are not the people to go wandering about on the wharf after dark. Besides, they know that the ice-house is full of water. It was Layard's maiden sister first told me."
He laughed at the idea of calling blooming young Hetty Layard's maiden sister.
"But the child, William--the child!" persisted the invalid. "Suppose by some misfortune the child should stray that way and fall in?"
"Nellie, no person with an atom of sense would think of permitting a child out on that wharf. Why, the canal, the waters of Crawford's Bay, are only a few steps from the back door of Crawford's House, and who would let a child play on the banks of a canal? I mean, of course, no people like the Layards would allow their child to play there."
"But this awful dark huge tank you tell me of is a thousand times worse than the open canal. If a child fell into the open canal people would see him, but if he fell into that dreadful tank he would be drowned, poor little fellow, before any one missed him. I do wish, William, you would get the doors put up. You see, as you tell me, there was no danger up to this, for no one could get near it; but now there is a child."
She pleaded with gestures and her eyes and her voice, as though a child of her own were menaced.
He held out his hand to her and took hers in his.
"There, Nellie, I will. I'll see the place made quite safe. Of course I'll go down and arrange about it if you wish it."
She raised the hand she held and kissed it.
He thought what a chance this would give him of meeting the Layards--Hetty--before the month was out!