What he saw must have satisfied him that there would be no more use for his machine for a time, at least; for he pushed it to a place where there was a break in a fence and concealed it behind a musty-looking corn shock, left from the fall before.  Then placing the glass under his arm he walked guardedly along the road in the direction of Miss Vale’s car.

Some distance further on there was a tall swamp maple growing by the roadside; it was an easy task to mount into its branches from the top fence-rail; then resting snugly in a high fork, he leveled his glass and proceeded to scan the scene before him.

Miss Vale had descended from her car; her veil was raised, and she was gingerly picking at the mechanism with hands sheathed in canvas gloves.  With apparent intentness she took out tools; small parts were inspected minutely.  And yet, for all that, there was something unusual in her manner; every now and then she would lift her head, casually, so it seemed, and glance away across the fields.

“And always to the right,” murmured the man in the tree-top, after a little.

At once the big glass swept around in that direction.

“A house,” added the watcher, with great satisfaction.

The building was almost buried in a thick growth of trees; its white sides and red roof shone in the sun through branches abud with April.

Suddenly, in the midst of her labor, Miss Vale paused; her manner changed, the tools were dropped, the parts lost interest.  Facing the house, she yawned, with arms thrown wide after the manner of one much wearied with a task; then she took off the gloves, unpinned her hat and smoothed her hair.  This was gone through with careful elaboration and afterwards there was a pause; the girl then gathered up the things, got into the machine, placed the hat upon the seat beside her, went careening away with never a backward glance.

But the man in the tree seemed in no haste to follow; instead he covered the distant house with his glass and waited patiently.  Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed, then half an hour and finally an hour.  At the end of that time, however, a figure emerged from the trees about the house and walked hastily toward the road; the eyes of the watcher glistened, his fine teeth shone in an appreciative smile.

Reaching the road where the car had stopped, the newcomer, who was young, well-dressed and rather good-looking, suddenly paused, stooped and lifted something from the ground.  He held in his hands the work gloves of Miss Vale, which she had dropped after taking them off.  For a moment the young man stood looking at them as though hesitating what to do; then he turned, went to the roadside and placed them carefully upon the top rail of the fence.  Then trudging along on his way, he unsuspectingly passed beneath the maple which concealed the man with the glass.

When he was out of sight, the Italian slipped down the tree and ran lightly along the road to the place where the gloves lay.  He took up one and looked within; but it was empty.  However, in the thumb of the next was a slip of paper which bore a single line of writing: