left the city for Oxbow Village,—­for what reason he puzzled himself to guess,—­than he determined to follow her at once, and take up the conversation he had begun at the party where it left off.  And as the young poet had received his quietus for the present at the publisher’s, and as Master Gridley had nothing specially to detain him, they too returned at about the same time, and so our old acquaintances were once more together within the familiar precincts where we have been accustomed to see them.

Master Gridley did not like playing the part of a spy, but it must be remembered that he was an old college officer, and had something of the detective’s sagacity, and a certain cunning derived from the habit of keeping an eye on mischievous students.  If any underhand contrivance was at work, involving the welfare of any one in whom he was interested, he was a dangerous person for the plotters, for he had plenty of time to attend to them, and would be apt to take a kind of pleasure in matching his wits against another crafty person’s,—­such a one, for instance, as Mr. Macchiavelli Bradshaw.

Perhaps he caught some words of that gentleman’s conversation at the party; at any rate, he could not fail to observe his manner.  When he found that the young man had followed Myrtle back to the village, he suspected something more than a coincidence.  When he learned that he was assiduously visiting The Poplars, and that he was in close communication with Miss Cynthia Badlam, he felt sure that he was pressing the siege of Myrtle’s heart.  But that there was some difficulty in the way was equally clear to him, for he ascertained, through channels which the attentive reader will soon have means of conjecturing, that Myrtle had seen him but once in the week following his return, and that in the presence of her dragons.  She had various excuses when he called,—­headaches, perhaps, among the rest, as these are staple articles on such occasions.  But Master Gridley knew his man too well to think that slight obstacles would prevent his going forward to effect his purpose.

“I think he will get her; if he holds on,” the old man said to himself, “and he won’t let go in a hurry, if there were any real love about it—­but surely he is incapable of such a human weakness as the tender passion.  What does all this sudden concentration upon the girl mean?  He knows something about her that we don’t know,—­that must be it.  What did he hide that paper for, a year ago and more?  Could that have anything to do with his pursuit of Myrtle Hazard today?”

Master Gridley paused as he asked this question of himself, for a luminous idea had struck him.  Consulting daily with Cynthia Badlam, was he?  Could there be a conspiracy between these two persons to conceal some important fact, or to keep something back until it would be for their common interest to have it made known?