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!"