I love but thee,
  And thee will I love to eternity.

At eight o’clock on the following morning the quick strokes of the workman’s hammer reawakened the echoes at the end of the building where the big enclosed veranda was going up.

As the clock struck nine Mrs. Weston could be seen hanging up her master’s coats and trousers on a long line stretched across the clothes-yard.  They remained there two hours, viewed from afar by Sweetwater, but not approached till he saw the old woman disappear from one of the gates with a basket on her arm.  Then he developed thirst and went rearward to the pump.  While there, he took a look at the sea.  A brisk wind was springing up.  It gave him an idea.

Making sure that his fellow workmen were all busy, he loosened one end of the line holding the fluttering garments and then went back to his work.  As the wind increased, the strain on the line became too great, and soon he had the satisfaction of seeing the whole thing fall in one wild flap to the ground.  With an exclamation calculated to draw the attention of the men about him to what had happened, he rushed to the rescue, lifted the line and rearranged the clothes.  Then refastening—­this time securely—­the end of the line which had slipped loose, he returned to his post, with just one quick and disappointed look thrown back at the now safe if wildly fluttering garments.

He had improved his opportunity to examine the inside of every coat and had found nothing to reward his scrutiny.  But it was not this which had given him his chief annoyance.  It was the fact that the one coat from which he had expected the anticipated clue—­the coat which Mr. Roberts had certainly worn on that tragic day at the museum—­was not there.  A summer overcoat had filled out the number, and his investigation was incomplete.

Why was that one coat lacking?  He was sure he had seen it the night before lying on the bed with the others.  Was it still there, or had it been stowed away in drawer or closet, irrespective of its danger from moths, for a reason he would give his eyeteeth to know but dared not inquire into till he had clinched his friendship with this old woman so thoroughly that he could ask her anything—­which certainly was not the case as yet.

The absence of the one coat he wanted most to see afflicted him sorely.  He told Mrs. Weston, on her return, how the line had fallen and how he had replaced it, but for all his wits, he could not get any further.  With the close of the day’s work and the reappearance of Mr. Roberts, he slipped away to the village, to avoid an encounter of the results of which he felt very doubtful.  His dinner would not be ready till after Mr. Roberts had been served, and the three hours which must necessarily elapse before that happy moment looked very long and very unproductive to him, especially as he had found no answer as yet to the question which so grievously perplexed him.