he will be obeyed.

"You stay here, Mr. Hand, and help with this gentleman; and Little
Simon, here, you go up to your father's livery stable and harness up,
quick as you can. Then drive up to my place and get the boy to bring
my buggy down here, with the white horse. Quick, you understand? Tell
them the doctor's waiting."

Agatha sat in the launch while the doctor's orders were carried out.
Little Simon was off getting the vehicles; Doctor Thayer had run up the
dock to the village street on some errand, saying he would be back by
the time the carriages were there; and Hand was walking up and down the
dock, keeping a watchful eye on the launch. James was lying in the
sheltered corner of the boat, ominously quiet. His eyes were closed,
and his face had grown ghastly in his illness. Tears came to Agatha's
eyes as she looked at him, seeing how much worse his condition was than
when he had talked with her, almost happily, in the night. She herself
felt miserably tired and ill; and as she waited, she had the sensation
one sometimes has in waiting for a train; that the waiting would go on
for ever, would never end.

The weather changed, as the doctor had prophesied, and the rain ceased.
Fresh gusts of wind from the sea blew clouds of fog and mist inland,
while the surface of the water turned from gray to green, from green to
blue. The wind, blowing against the receding tide, tossed the foam
back toward the land in fantastic plumes. Agatha, looking out over the
sea, which now began to sparkle in the light, longed in her heart to
take the return of the sunshine as an omen of good. It warmed and
cheered her, body and soul.

As her eyes turned from the sea to the village tossed up beyond its
highest tides, she searched, though in vain, for some spot which she
could identify with the memories of her childhood. She must have seen
Charlesport in some one of her numerous visits to Ilion as a child; but
though she recalled vividly many of her early experiences, they were in
no way suggestive of this tiny antiquarian village, or of the rocky
hillside stretching off toward the horizon. A narrow road wound
athwart the hill, leading into the country beyond. It was steep and
rugged, and finally it curved over the distant fields.

But the old red house was the talisman that brought back to her mind
the familiar picture. She wondered if it lay over the hill beyond that
rugged road. She closed her eyes and saw the green fi