Certainly his occupation about eleven o'clock one morning had little apparent bearing on the concerns of his office; he was standing at the window of his private room, which was on the first floor of the mill, with a large field-glass at his eyes.

The glass was focussed upon the Cartwrights' garden, in which sat Jessie with Emily Hood.

They were but a short distance away, and Dagworthy could observe them closely; he had done so, intermittently, for almost an hour, and this was the second morning that he had thus amused himself.

Yet, to judge from his face, when he turned away, amusement was hardly his state of mind; his features had a hard-set earnestness, an expression almost savage.

And then he walked about the little room, regarding objects absently.
Four days later he was again with his glass at the window; it wanted a few minutes of ten o'clock.