e afterwards seemed to wish to deny this remark, or
to confuse my impressions of it, which naturally fixed it the better in
my mind.

I remember well the morning when he was at last coaxed into approaching
the house. It was late in September, and a day of perfect calm. As we
looked from the broad piazza, there was a glassy smoothness over all
the bay, and the hills were coated with a film, or rather a mere
varnish, inconceivably thin, of haze more delicate than any other
climate in America can show. Over the water there were white gulls
flying, lazy and low; schools of young mackerel displayed their white
sides above the surface; and it seemed as if even a butterfly might be
seen for miles over that calm expanse. The bay was covered with
mackerel-boats, and one man sculled indolently across the foreground a
scarlet skiff. It was so still that every white sail-boat rested where
its sail was first spread; and though the tide was at half-ebb, the
anchored boats swung idly different ways from their moorings. Yet there
was a continuous ripple in the broad sail of some almost motionless
schooner, and there was a constant melodious plash along the shore.
From the mouth of the bay came up slowly the premonitory line of bluer
water, and we knew that a breeze was near.

Severance seemed to rise in spirits as we approached the house, and I
noticed no sign of shrinking, except an occasional lowering of the
voice. Seeing this, I ventured to joke him a little on his previous
reluctance, and he replied in the same strain. I seated myself at the
corner, and began sketching old Fort Louis, while he strolled along the
piazza, looking in at the large, vacant windows. As he approached the
farther end, I suddenly heard him give a little cry of amazement or
dismay, and, looking up, saw him leaning against the wall, with pale
face and hands clenched.

A minute sometimes appears a long while; and though I sprang to him
instantly, yet I remember that it seemed as if, during that instant,
the whole face of things had changed. The breeze had come, the bay was
rippled, the sail-boats careened to the wind, fishes and birds were
gone, and a dark gray cloud had come between us and the sun. Such
sudden changes are not, however, uncommon after an interval of calm;
and my only conscious thought at the time was of wonder at the strange
aspect of my companion.

"What was that?" asked Severance in a bewildered tone. I looked about
me, equally puzzled.