"That's all right, Nat--that's all right. They're my graves, so we're
welcome to sit on them. I often come here and sit for hours at a time.
They like to have me, especially little Jean--the middle one. Perhaps
I'll tell you about Jean before you go away."

If Captain Plum had been watching him he would have seen that soft
mysterious light again shining in the old councilor's eyes. But now
Nathaniel stood erect, his nostrils sniffing the air, catching once more
the sweet scent of lilac. He hurried out into the opening, with the old
man close behind him, and peered down into the starlit gloom into which
the two girls had disappeared. The lovely face that had appeared to him
for an instant at Obadiah's cabin began to haunt him. He was sure now
that his sudden appearance had not been the only cause of its terror,
and he felt that he should have called out to her or followed until he
had overtaken her. He could easily have excused his boldness, even if
the councilor had been watching him from the cabin door. He was certain
that she had passed very near to him again and that the fright which
Obadiah had attempted to explain was not because of the graves. He swung
about upon his companion, determined to ask for an explanation. The
latter seemed to divine his thought.

"Don't let a little scent of lilac disturb you so, young man," he said
with singular coldness. "It may cause you great unpleasantness." He went
ahead and Nathaniel followed him, assured that the old man's words and
the way in which he had spoken them no longer left a doubt as to the
identity of his night visitor. She was one of the councilor's wives, so
he thought, and his own interest in her was beginning to have an
irritating effect. In other words Obadiah was becoming jealous.