Now something else, yet something not so very different, had suddenly stepped into his life, and he knew it.  The something was dressed in white and had stepped out of a tree.  It was almost laughable.  This woman had come into his dreams.  The very sight of her attracted him—­or was it the manner of her coming?  She was just like an ideal he had often made for himself.  Few men meet even the one who looks like the ideal, but he had seen the reality—­coming out of a tree.  He kept on wondering how long she had been there.  He himself had been dreaming in front of the tree an hour before he saw her.  Had she seen him before she came out?  She had given no sign; but if she had seen him, she had trusted him with a secret.  Mark looked at the tree.  It was half embedded in the wall.  Then he understood.  The tree masked a secret entrance to Killimaga.

He was still smiling over his discovery when he heard the voices of the agent and constable.  They were coming back, so he dropped into his hiding place in the tall grass.

“Well, Brown,” the agent was saying, “I am going to tackle her.  I’ve got to see that face.  It’s the only way!  If I saw it once, I’d know for sure from the photograph they sent me.”

“Ye’d better not,” advised the constable.  “She might be a-scared before—­”

“But I’ve got to be sure,” interrupted the agent.

“Aw, ye’re sure enough, ain’t ye?  There’s the photygraft, and I seed her.”

“But she slipped me in Boston, and I nearly lost the trail.  I can’t take chances on this job—­it’s too important—­and I’ve got to report something pretty soon.  That damn veil!  She always has it on.”

“Yep, she had it when she come down here, too, and when she tuk the house.  All right, see her if ye can!  Ye’re the jedge.  She’s coming around the bend of the road now.”  The constable was peering out from his hiding place among the bushes.

“Is the priest with her?” asked the agent.

“He’s gone back to the village.  She didn’t go that far—­she seldom does.  But he goes to see her; and she goes to his church on Sundays.”

“I wonder if he knows anything?”

“Trust that gent to know most everything, I guess.”  The constable was very positive.  “Father Murray’s nobody’s fool,” he added, “and she won’t talk to nobody else.  I’ll bet a yearlin’ heifer he’s on; but nobody could drag nothing out of him.”

“I know that,” said the agent.  “I’ve been up there a dozen times, and I’ve talked with him by the hour—­but always about books; I couldn’t get him to talk about anything else.  Here she is!  Go on back.”

The constable disappeared behind the bushes, and his companion stood out in the little clearing to wait.

The woman saw him; Mark, watching from the long grass, thought she hesitated.  Then she dropped her veil and came on.  The agent stepped forward, and the woman seemed distressed.  What the agent intended to do Mark could not guess, but he made up his mind at once as to what he would do himself.  He arose and, just as the agent met the lady, Mark’s arm went through his and he—­not of his own volition—­turned to face the ocean.