第46章 CHAPTER XII THE LETTER AND THE PHONE(1)

The cookies appeared on the table that evening. Brown noticed them at once.

"When did you bake these?" he asked.

Atkins made no reply, so the question was repeated with a variation.

"Did you bake these this afternoon?" inquired the substitute assistant.

"Humph? Hey? Oh, yes, I guess so. Why? Anything the matter with 'em?"

"Matter with them? No. They're the finest things I've tasted since I came here. New receipt, isn't it?"

"Cal'late so."

"I thought it must be. I'll take another."

He took another, and many others thereafter. He and his superior cleared the plate between them.

Brown was prepared for questions concerning his occupation of the afternoon and was ready with some defiant queries of his own. But no occasion arose for either defiance or cross-examination. Seth never hinted at a suspicion nor mentioned the young lady at the bungalow. Brown therefore remained silent concerning what he had seen from the attic window. He would hold that in reserve, and if Atkins ever did accuse him of bad faith or breach of contract he could retort in kind. His conscience was clear now--he was no more of a traitor than Seth himself--and, this being so, he felt delightfully independent. If trouble came he was ready for it, and in the meantime he should do as he pleased.

But no trouble came. That day, and for many days thereafter, the lightkeeper was sweetness itself. He and his helper had never been more anxious to please each other, and the house at Twin-Lights was-- to all appearances--an abode of perfect trust and peace. Every day, when Seth was asleep or out of the way, "working on the Daisy M.," the assistant swam to the cove, and every day he met Miss Graham there! During the first week he returned from his dips expecting to be confronted by his superior, and ready with counter accusations of his own. After this he ceased to care. Seth did not ask a question and was so trustful and unsuspecting that Brown decided his secret was undiscovered. In fact, the lightkeeper was so innocent that the young man felt almost wicked, as if he were deceiving a child. He very nearly forgot the meeting behind the sand dune, having other and much more important things to think of.

July passed, and the first three weeks of August followed suit. The weather, which had been glorious, suddenly gave that part of the coast a surprise party in the form of a three days' storm. It was an offshore gale, but fierce, and the lighthouse buildings rocked in its grasp. Bathing was out of the question, and one of Seth's dories broke its anchor rope and went to pieces in the breakers.

Atkins and Brown slept but little during the storm, both being on duty the greater part of the time.

The fourth day broke clear, but the wind had changed to the east and the barometer threatened more bad weather to come. When Seth came in to breakfast he found his helper sound asleep in a kitchen chair, his head on the table. The young man was pretty well worn out.

Atkins insisted upon his going to bed for the forenoon.

"Of course I sha'n't," protested Brown. "It's my watch, and you need sleep yourself."

"No, I don't, neither," was the decided answer. "I slept between times up in the tower, off and on. You go and turn in. I've got to drive over to Eastboro by and by, and I want you to be wide awake while I'm away. We ain't done with this spell of weather yet.

We'll have rain and an easterly blow by night, see if we don't. You go right straight to bed."

"I shall do nothing of the sort."

"Yes, you will. I'm your boss and I order you to do it. No back talk, now. Go!"

So Brown went, unwilling but very tired. He was sound asleep in ten minutes.

Seth busied himself about the house, occasionally stepping to the window to look out at the weather. An observer would have noticed that before leaving the window on each of these occasions, his gaze invariably turned toward the bungalow. His thoughts were more constant than his gaze; they never left his little cottage across the cove. In fact, they had scarcely left it for the past month.

He washed the breakfast dishes, set the room in order, and was turning once more toward the window, when he heard a footstep approaching the open door. He knew the step; it was one with which he had been familiar during other and happier days, and now, once more--after all the years and his savage determination to forget and to hate--it had the power to awaken strange emotions in his breast.

Yet his first move was to run into the living room and close his helper's chamber door. When he came back to the kitchen, shutting the living-room door carefully behind him, Mrs. Bascom was standing on the sill. She started when she saw him.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed. "You? I cal'lated, of course, you was abed and asleep."

The lightkeeper waved his hands.

"S-sh-h!" he whispered.

"What shall I s-sh-h about? Your young man's gone somewhere, I s'pose, else you wouldn't be here."

"No, he ain't. He's turned in, tired out."

"Oh, then I guess I'd better go back home. 'Twas him I expected to see, else, of course, I shouldn't have come."

"Oh, I know that," with a sigh. "Where's your boss, Miss Graham?"

"She's gone for a walk along shore. I came over to--to bring back them eggs I borrowed."

"Did you? Where are they?"

The housekeeper seemed embarrassed, and her plump cheeks reddened.

"I--I declare I forgot to bring 'em after all," she stammered.

"I want to know. That's funny. You don't often--that is, you didn't use to forget things hardly ever, Emeline."

"Hum! you remember a lot, don't you."

"I remember more'n you think I do, Emeline."

"That's enough of that, Seth. Remember what I told you last time we saw each other."

"Oh, all right, all right. I ain't rakin' up bygones. I s'pose I deserve all I'm gettin'."

"I s'pose you do. Well, long's I forgot the eggs I guess I might as well be trottin' back. . . . You--you've been all right--you and Mr. Brown, I mean--for the last few days, while the storm was goin' on?"

"Um-h'm," gloomily. "How about you two over to the bungalow?

You've kept dry and snug, I judge."

"Yes."