it.

The discovery made him feel sick.

He turned to make his escape from the house, to which he felt that he
was a fool to have returned at all, when the door by which he had
entered opened slowly, and the girl came in.

A little flash, as of pleased surprise, passed over her white face. Then
she said, under her breath:

"So you have come back. I didn't think you would. I--I am sorry you
did."

Max looked rather blank. The girl's attraction for him had increased
during the short period he had been absent from her. He had had time to
think over his feelings, to find his interest stimulated by the process.
Imagination, which does so much for a woman with a man, and for a man
with a woman, had begun to have play. He had come back determined to
find out more about the girl, to probe to the bottom of the mystery in
which, perhaps, consisted so much of the charm she had for him.

Even now, upon her entrance, the first sight of her face had made his
heart leap up.

There was a pause when she finished speaking. Max, who was usually
fluent enough with her sex, hesitated, stammered and at last said:

"You are sorry I came back? Yet you seemed anxious enough to make me
promise to come back!"

He observed that a great change had come over her. Instead of being
nerveless and lifeless, as he had left her, with dull eyes and weak,
helpless limbs, she was now agitated, excited; she glanced nervously
about her while he spoke, and tapped the finger-tips of one hand
restlessly with those of the other as she listened.

"I know," she replied, rapidly, "I know I was. But--Granny has come
back. She came in while you were gone."

Max glanced at the wall, where he had fancied he saw the pair of
watching eyes.

"Oh," said he, "that explains what I saw, perhaps. Where is your
grandmother?"

"She has gone upstairs to her room under the roof."

"Ah! Are you sure she is upstairs? That she is not in the next room, for
instance, watching me through some secret peep-hole of hers?"

The girl stared at him in silence as he pointed to the wall, and as he
ran his hand over its surface.

"I saw a pair of eyes watching me just now," he went on, "from the
middle of this wall. I could swear to it!"

The girl looked incredulous, and passed her hand over the wall in her
turn. Then she shook her head.

"I can feel nothing," said she. "It must be your fancy. There is no room
there. It is the ground-floor of an old warehouse next door whic