He knew why old Donald could not sleep, and where he had gone, and he pictured him sitting before the little old cabin in the starlit valley communing with the spirit of Jane.

And during those two hours he steeled himself for the last time to the thing that was going to happen when the day came.
It was nearly three o'clock when MacDonald returned.

It was four o'clock before he roused Joanne; and it was five o'clock when they had eaten their breakfast, and MacDonald prepared to leave for the mountain with his telescope.

Aldous had observed Joanne talking to him for several minutes alone, and he had also observed that her eyes were very bright, and that there was an unusual eagerness in her manner of listening to what the old man was saying.

The significance of this did not occur to him when she urged him to accompany MacDonald.
"Two pairs of eyes are better than one, John," she said, "and I cannot possibly be in danger here.