at. Then, reluctantly, he
dipped his oars in the lake, and rowed towards the house, keeping his
head half turned and staring into the darkness with eyes that were still
full of mystery and profound attention.

Lady Holme looked over the water too, but she saw nothing upon its calm
surface.

"Go into the boat-house," she said.

Paolo nodded without speaking. His lips were parted.

"Chi e la?" she heard him whisper to himself.

They were close to the house now. Its high, pale front, full of
shuttered windows, loomed over them, and the roar of the waterfall was
loud in their ears. Paolo turned the boat towards his right, and, almost
directly, Lady Holme saw a dark opening in the solid stone blocks on
which the house was built. The boat glided through it into cover, and
the arrow of light at the prow pierced ebon blackness, while the
plash of the oars made a curious sound, full of sudden desolation and
weariness. A bat flitted over the arrow of light and vanished, and the
head of a swimming rat was visible for a moment, pursued by a wrinkle on
the water.

"How dark it is here," Lady Holme said in a low voice. "And what strange
noises there are."

There was terror in the sound of the waterfall heard under this
curving roof of stone. It sounded like a quantity of disputing voices,
quarrelling in the blackness of the night. The arrow of light lay on a
step, and the boat's prow grated gently against a large ring of rusty
iron.

"And you tie up the boat here at night?" she asked as she got up.

"Si, signora."

While she stood on the step, close to the black water, he passed the
rope through the ring, and tied it deftly in a loose knot that any
backward movement of the boat would tighten. She watched with profound
attention his hands moving quickly in the faint light cast by the
lantern.

"How well you tie it," she said.

He smiled.

"Si, signora."

"Is it easy to untie?"

"Si, signora."

"Show me, will you? It--it holds so well that I should have thought it
would be difficult."

He looked up at her with a flash of surprise. Something in her voice had
caught his young attention sharply. She smiled at him when she saw the
keen inquiry in his large eyes.

"I'm interested in all these little things you do so well," she said.

He flushed with pride, and immediately untied the knot, carefully,
showing her exactly how he did it.

"Thank you. I see. It's very ingenious."

"Si, signora. I can do many things