ow was long in finding her purse;
the palm of his hand was toward them, they could see the underside of
the fingers. They were broad, and cushioned with coarse flesh.

Anne had now grown so pale that the elder woman did not dare to linger
longer. She paid the money, took the fish, and asked her niece to row on
down the lake, not forgetting, even then, to add that she was afraid of
the sun's heat, having once had a sun-stroke during the life of the
lamented Mr. Young. Anne rowed on, hardly knowing what she was doing.
Not until they had reached the little river again, and were out of sight
round its curve under the overhanging trees, did they speak.

"Left-handed, and cushions under his finger-tips," said Miss Lois. "But,
Ruth, how you acted! You almost betrayed us."

"I could not help it," said Anne, shuddering. "When I saw that hand, and
thought--Oh, poor, poor Helen!"

"You must not give way to fancies," said Miss Louis. But she too felt an
inward excitement, though she would not acknowledge it.

The fisherman was short in stature, and broad; he was muscular, and his
arms seemed too long for his body as he sat in his boat. His head was
set on his shoulders without visible throat, his small eyes were very
near together, and twinkled when he spoke, while his massive jaw
contradicted their ferrety mirthfulness as his muscular frame
contradicted the childish, vacant expression of his peculiarly small
boyish mouth, whose upper lip protruded over narrow yellow teeth like
fangs.

"Faces have little to do with it," said Miss Lois again, half to
herself, half to Anne. "It is well known that the portraits of murderers
show not a few fine-looking men among them, while the women are almost
invariably handsome. What _I_ noticed was a certain want in the
creature's face, a weakness of some kind, with all his evident
craftiness."

When they came to the solitary cabin, Miss Lois proposed that they
should wait and see whether it really was the fisherman's home. "It will
be another small point settled," she said. "We can conceal our boat, and
keep watch in the woods. As he has my money, he will probably come home
soon, and very likely go directly down to the village to spend it: that
is always the way with such shiftless creatures."

They landed, hid the boat in a little bay among the reeds some distance
below the cabin, and then stole back through the woods until they came
within sight of its door. There, standing concealed be