But before she had gone far, she realised that the other was not following her, but was still standing in the same spot, watching her through a veil the like of which is not to be found in Shelby, and which in itself was enough to rouse a decent woman’s suspicions.

She was so amazed at this that she stepped back and attempted to address the stranger.  But before she had got much further than a timid and hesitating Madam, the woman, roused into action possibly by her interference, made a quick gesture suggestive of impatience if not rebuke, and moving resolutely towards the gate Miss Weeks had so indiscreetly left unguarded, pushed it open and disappeared within, dragging the little child after her.

The audacity of this act, perpetrated without apology before Miss Weeks’ very eyes, was too much for that lady’s equanimity.  She stopped stock-still, and, as she did so, beheld the gate swing heavily to and stop an inch from the post, hindered as we know by the intervening pebble.  She had scarcely got over the shock of this when plainly from the space beyond she heard a second creaking noise, then the swinging to of another gate, followed, after a breathless moment of intense listening, by a series of more distant sounds, which could only be explained by the supposition that the house door had been reached, opened and passed.

“And you didn’t follow?”

“I didn’t dare.”

“And she’s in there still?”

“I haven’t seen her come out.”

“Then what’s the matter with you?” called out a burly, high-strung woman, stepping hastily from the group and laying her hand upon the gate still standing temptingly ajar.  “It’s no time for nonsense,” she announced, as she pushed it open and stepped promptly in, followed by the motley group of men and women who, if they lacked courage to lead, certainly showed willingness enough to follow.

One glance and they felt their courage rewarded.

Rumour, which so often deceives, proved itself correct in this case.  A second gate confronted them exactly like the first even to the point of being held open by a pebble placed against the post.  And a second fence also! built upon the same pattern as the one they had just passed through; the two forming a double barrier as mysterious to contemplate in fact as it had ever been in fancy.  In gazing at these fences and the canyon-like walk stretching between them, the band of curious invaders forgot their prime errand.  Many were for entering this path whose terminus they could not see for the sharp turns it took in rounding either corner.  Among them was a couple of girls who had but one thought, as was evinced by their hurried whispers.  “If it looks like this in the daytime, what must it be at night!” To which came the quick retort:  “I’ve heard that the judge walks here.  Imagine it under the moon!”

But whatever the mysteries of the place, a greater one awaited them beyond, and presently realising this, they burst with one accord through the second gate into the mass of greenery, which, either from neglect or intention, masked this side of the Ostrander homestead.