I believe she had a strain of Indian blood. The voyageurs and their
families generally have."

Having recovered her self-possession, she made her statements in the
matter-of-fact tone she used to hide embarrassment flicking a little color
into the sketch before her as she spoke. Ford seated himself at a
distance, gazing at her with a kind of fascination. Here, then, was the
clew to that something untamed which persisted through all the effects of
training and education, as a wild flavor will last in a carefully
cultivated fruit. His curiosity about her was so intense that,
notwithstanding the difficulty with which she stated her facts, it
overcame his prompting to spare her.

"And yet," he said, after a long pause, in which he seemed to be
assimilating the information she had given him--"and yet I don't see how
that explains _you_."

"I suppose it doesn't--not any more than your situation explains you."

"My situation explains me perfectly, because I'm the victim of a wrong."

"Well, so am I--in another way. I'm made to suffer because I'm the
daughter of my parents."

"That's a rotten shame," he exclaimed, in boyish sympathy "It isn't your
fault."

"Of course it isn't," she smiled, wistfully. "And yet I'd rather suffer
with the parents I have than be happy with any others."

"I suppose that's natural," he admitted, doubtfully.

"I wish I knew more about them," she went on, continuing to give light
touches to the work before her, and now and then leaning back to get the
effect. "I never understood why my father was in prison in Canada."

"Perhaps it was when he killed the man," Ford suggested.

"No; that was in Virginia--at least, the first one. His people didn't like
it. That was the reason for his leaving home. He hated a settled life; and
so he wandered away into the northwest of Canada. It was in the days when
they first began to build the railways there--when there were almost no
people except the trappers and the voyageurs. I was born on the very
shores of Hudson Bay."

"But you didn't stay there?"

"No. I was only a very little child--not old enough to remember--when my
father sent me down to Quebec, to the Ursuline nuns. He never saw me
again. I lived with them till four years ago. I'm eighteen now."

"Why didn't he send you to his people? Hadn't he sisters?--or anything
like that."

"He tried to, but they wouldn't have anything to do with me."

It was clearly a relief to her to talk about herself. He guessed that she
rarely had an opportunity of opening her heart to any one. Not till this
morning had he seen her in the full light of day; and, though but an
immature judge, he fancied her features had settled themselves into lines
of reserve and pride from which in happier circumstances they might have
been free. Her way of twisting her dark hair--which waved over the brows
from a central parting--into the simplest kind of knot gave her an air of
sedateness beyond her years. But what he noticed in her particularly was
her eyes--not so much because they were wild, dark eyes, with the peculiar
fleeing expression of startled forest things, as because of the pleading,
apologetic look that comes into the eyes of forest things when they stand
at bay. It was when--for seconds only--the pupils shone with a jet-like
blaze that he caught what he called the non-Aryan effect; but that glow
died out quickly, leaving something of the fugitive appeal which Hawthorne
saw in the eyes of Beatrice Cenci.

"He offered his sisters a great deal of money," she sighed, "but they
wouldn't take me."

"Oh? So he had money?"

"He was one of the first Americans to make money in the Canadian
northwest; but that was after my mother died. She died in the snow, on a
journey--like that sketch above the fireplace. I've been told that it
changed my father's life. He had been what they call wild before that--but
he wasn't so any more. He grew very hard-working and serious. He was one
of the pioneers of that country--one of the very first to see its
possibilities. That was how he made his money; and when he died he left it
to me. I believe it's a good deal."

"Didn't you hate being in the convent?" he asked, suddenly "I should."

"N-no; not exactly. I wasn't unhappy. The Sisters were kind to me. Some of
them spoiled me. It wasn't until after my father died, and I began to
realize--who I was, that I grew restless. I felt I should never be happy
until I was among people of my own kind."

"And how did you get there?"

She smiled faintly to herself before answering.

"I never did. There are no people of my kind."

Embarrassed by the stress she seemed inclined to lay on this circumstance,
he grasped at the first thought that might divert her from it.

"So you live with a guardian! How do you like that?"

"I should like it well enough if he did--that is, if his wife did. You
see," she tried to explain, "she's very sweet and gentle, and all that,
but she's devoted to the proprieties of life, and I seem to represent to
her--its improprieties. I know it's a trial to her to keep me, and so, in
a way, it's a trial to me to stay."

"Why do you stay, then?"

"For one reason, because I can't help myself. I have to do what the law
tells me."

"I see. The law again!"

"Yes; the law again. But I've other reasons besides that."

"Such as--?"

"Well, I'm very fond of their little girl, for one thing. She's the
greatest darling in the world, and the only creature, except my dog, that
loves me."

"What's her name?"

The question drove her to painting with closer attention to her work. Ford
followed something of the progress of her thought by watching the just
perceptible contraction of her brows into a little frown, and the setting
of her lips into a curve of determination. They were handsome lips, mobile
and sensitive--lips that might easily have been disdainful had not the
inner spirit softened them with a tremor--or it might have been a
light--of gentleness.

"It isn't worth while to tell you that," she said, after long reflection.
"It will be safer for you in the end not to know any of our names at all."

"Still--if I escape--I should like to know them."

"If you escape, you may be able to find out."

"Oh, well," he said, with assumed indifference, "since you don't want to
tell me--"

Going on with her painting, she allowed the subject to drop; but to him
the opportunity for conversation was too rare a thing to neglect. Not only
was his youthful impulse toward social self-expression normally strong,
but his pleasure in talking to a lady--a girl--was undeniable. Sometimes
in his moments of solitary meditation he said to himself that she was "not
his type of girl"; but the fact that he had been deprived of feminine
society for nearly three years made him ready to fall in love with any
one. If he did not precisely fall in love with this girl, it was only
because the situation precluded sentiment; and yet it was pleasant to sit
and watch her paint, and even torment her with his questions.

"So the little girl is one reason for your staying here. What's another?"

She betrayed her own taste for social communion by the readiness with
which she answered him--

"I don't know that I ought to tell you that; and yet I might as well. It's
just this: they're not very well off--so I can help. Naturally I like
that."

"You can help by footing the bills. That's all very fine if you enjoy it,
but everybody wouldn't."

"They would if they were in my position," she insisted. "When you can help
in any way it gives you a sense of being of use to some one. I'd rather
that people needed me, even if they didn't want me, than that they
shouldn't need me at all."

"They need your money," he declared, with a young man's outspokenness.
"That's what."

"But that's something, isn't it? When you've no place in the world you're
glad enough to get one, even if you have to buy it. My guardian and his
wife mayn't care much to have me, but it's some satisfaction to know that
they'd get along much worse if I weren't here."

"So should I," he laughed. "What I'm to do when I'm turned adrift without
you, Heaven only knows. It's curious--the effect imprisonment has on you.
It takes away your self-reliance. It gives you a helpless feeling, like a
baby. You want to be free--and yet you're almost afraid of the open air."

He was so much at home with her now that, sitting carelessly astride of
his chair, with his arms folded on the back, he felt a fraternal element
in their mutual relation. She bent more closely over her work, and spoke
without looking up.

"Oh, you'll get along all right. You're that sort."

"That's easy to say."

"You may find it easy to do." Her next words, uttered while she continued
to flick color into her sketch, caused him to jump with astonishment. "I'd
go to the Argentine."

"Why not say the moon?"

"For one reason, because the moon is inaccessible."

"So is the Argentine--for me."

"Oh no, it isn't. Other people have reached it."

"Yes: but they weren't in my fix."

"Some of them were probably in worse."

There was a pause, during which she seemed absorbed in her work, while
Ford sat meditatively whistling under his breath.

"What put the Argentine into your head?" he asked, at last.

"Because I happen to know a good deal about it. Everybody says it's the
country of new opportunities. I know people who've lived there. The little
girl I was speaking of just now--whom I'm so fond of--was born there. Her
father is dead since then, and her mother is married again."

He continued to meditate, emitting the same tuneless, abstracted sound,
just above his breath.

"I know the name of an American firm out there," she went on. "It's
Stephens and Jarrott. It's a very good firm to work for. I've often heard
that. And Mr. Jarrott has helped ever so many--stranded people."

"I should be just his sort, then."

His laugh, as he sprang to his feet, seemed to dismiss an impossible
subject; and yet as he lay on his couch that evening in the lampless
darkness the name of Stephens and Jarrott obtruded itself into his visions
of this girl, who stood between him and peril because she "disliked the
law," He wondered how far it was dislike, and how far jealous pain. In
her eagerness to buy the domestic place she had not inherited she reminded
him of something he had read--or heard--of the wild olive being grafted
into the olive of the orchard. Well, that would come in the natural course
of events. Some fine fellow, worthy to be her mate, would see to it. He
was not without a pleasant belief that in happier circumstances he himself
might have had the qualifications for the task. He wondered again what her
name was. He ran through the catalogue of the names he himself would have
chosen for a heroine--Gladys, Ethel, Mildred Millicent!--none of them
seemed to suit her. He tried again. Margaret, Beatrice, Lucy, Joan! Joan
possibly--or he said to himself, in the last inconsequential thoughts as
he fell asleep, it might be--the Wild Olive.




V



As the days passed, one much like another, and the retreat seemed more and
more secure, it was natural that Ford's thoughts should dwell less on his
own danger and more on the girl who filled his immediate horizon. The care
with which she foresaw his wants, the ingenuity with which she met them,
the dignity and simplicity with which she carried herself through
incidents that to a less delicate tact must have been difficult, would
have excited his admiration in any case, even if the namelessness which
helped to make her an impersonal element in the episode had not stirred
his imagination. He was obliged to remind himself often that she was "not
his type of girl," in order to confine his heart within the limits which
the situation imposed.

It worried him, therefore, it even hurt him, that in spite of all the
openings he had given her, she had never offered him a sign of her belief
in his innocence. For this reason he took the first occasion when she was
seated at her easel, with the dog lying at her feet, to lay his case
before her.

He told her of his overindulged boyhood, as the only child of a wealthy
New York merchant. He outlined his profitless years at the university,
where a too free use of money had hindered work. He narrated the disasters
that had left him at the age of two-and-twenty to begin life for
himself--his father's bankruptcy, followed by the death of both his
parents within the year. He had been eager to start in at the foot of the
ladder and work his way upward, when the proposal was made which proved
fatal.

Old Chris Ford, his great-uncle, known throughout the Adirondack region as
"the lumber king," had offered to take him, train him to the lumber
business, and make him his heir. An eccentric, childless widower, commonly
believed to have broken his wife's heart by sheer bitterness of tongue,
old Chris Ford was hated, feared, and flattered by the relatives and
time-servers who hoped ultimately to profit by his favor. Norrie Ford
neither flattered nor feared his powerful kinsman, but he hated him with
the best. His own instincts were city born and bred. He was conscious,
too, of that aptitude with which the typical New-Yorker is supposed to
come into being--the capacity to make money. He would have preferred to
make it on his own ground and in his own way; and had it not been for the
counsels of those who wished him well, he would have replied to his
great-uncle's offer with a courteous "No." Wiser heads than his pointed
out the folly of such a course as that; and so, reluctantly, he entered on
his apprenticeship.

In the two years that followed he could not see what purpose he served
other than that of a mark for the old man's poisoned wit. He was taught
nothing, and paid nothing, and given nothing to do. He slept under his
great-uncle's roof and ate at his table, but the sharp tongue made the bed
hard to lie on and the bread difficult to swallow down. Idleness
reawakened the propensity to vicious habits which he thought he had
outlived, while the rough society of the lumber camps, in which he sought
to relieve the tedium of time, extended him the welcome which Falstaff
and his comrades gave Prince Hal.

The revolt of his self-respect was on the eve of bringing this phase of
his existence to an end when the low farce turned into tragedy. Old Chris
Ford was found dead in his bed--shot in his sleep. On the premises there
had been but three persons, one of whom must have committed the
crime--Norrie Ford, and Jacob and Amalia Gramm. Jacob and Amalia Gramm had
been the old man's servants for thirty years. Their faithfulness put them
beyond suspicion. The possibility of their guilt, having been considered,
was dismissed with few formalities. The conviction of Norrie Ford became
easy after that--the more respectable people of the neighborhood being
agreed that from the evidence presented no other deduction could be drawn.
The very fact that the old man, by his provocation of the lad, so
thoroughly deserved his fate made the manner in which he met with it the
clearer. Even Norrie Ford's friends, the hunters and the lumbermen,
admitted as much as that, though they were determined that he should never
suffer for so meritorious an act as long as they could give him a fighting
chance for freedom.

The girl listened to Ford's narrative with some degree of interest, though
it contained nothing new to her. She could not have lived at Greenport
during the period of his trial without being familiar with it all. But
when he came to explanations in his own defence she followed listlessly.
Though she leaned back in her chair, and courteously stopped painting,
while he talked so earnestly, the light in her eyes faded to a lustreless
gleam, like that of the black pearl. His perception that her thoughts were
wandering gave him a queer sensation of speaking into a medium in which
his voice could not carry, cutting short his arguments, and bringing him
to his conclusion more hurriedly than he had intended.

"I wanted you to know I didn't do it," he finished, in a tone which begged
for some expression of her belief, "because you've done so much to help
me."

"Oh, but I should have helped you just the same, whether you had done it
or not."

"But I suppose it makes some difference to you," he cried, impatiently,
"to know that I didn't."

"I suppose it would," she admitted, slowly, "if I thought much about it."

"Well, won't you think?" he pleaded---"just to oblige me."

"Perhaps I will, when you're gone; but at present I have to give my mind
to getting you away. It was to talk about that that I came this morning."

Had she wanted to slip out of giving an opinion on the subject of his
guilt, she could not have found a better exit. The means of his ultimate
escape engrossed him even more than the theme of his innocence. When she
spoke again all his faculties were concentrated into one keen point of
attention.

"I think the time has come for you to--go."

If her voice trembled on the last word, he did not notice it. The pose of
his body, the lines of his face, the glint of his gray eyes, were alive
with interrogation.

"Go?" he asked, just audibly. "When?"

"To-morrow."

"How?"

"I'll tell you that then."

"Why can't you tell me now?"

"I could if I was sure you wouldn't raise objections, but I know you
will."

"Then there are objections to be raised?"

"There are objections to everything. There's no plan of escape that won't
expose you to a good many risks. I'd rather you didn't see them in
advance."

"But isn't it well to be prepared beforehand?"

"You'll have plenty of time for preparation--after you've started. If that
seems mysterious to you now, you'll know what I mean by it when I come
to-morrow. I shall be here in the afternoon at six."

With this information Ford was obliged to be content, spending a sleepless
night and an impatient day, waiting for the time appointed.

She came punctually. For the first time she was not followed by her dog.
The only change in her appearance he could see was a short skirt of rough
material instead of her usual linen or muslin.

"Are we going through the woods?" he asked.

"Not far. I shall take you by the trail that led to this spot before I
built the cabin and made the path." As she spoke she surveyed him. "You'll
do," she smiled at last. "In those flannels, and with your beard, no one
would know you for the Norrie Ford of three weeks ago."

It was easy for him to ascribe the glow in her eyes and the quiver in her
voice to the excitement of the moment; for he could see that she had the
spirit of adventure. Perhaps it was to conceal some embarrassment under
his regard that she spoke again, hurriedly.

"We've no time to lose. You needn't take anything from here. We'd better
start."

He followed her over the threshold, and as she turned to lock the cabin
he had time to throw a glance of farewell over the familiar hills, now
transmuted into a haze of amethyst under the westering sun. A second later
he heard her quick "Come on!" as she struck into the barely perceptible
path that led upward, around the shoulder of the mountain.

It was a stiff bit of climbing, but she sped along with the dryad-like
ease she had displayed on the night when she led him to the cabin. Beneath
the primeval growth of ash and pine there was an underbrush so dense that
no one but a creature gifted with the inherited instinct of the woods
could have found the invisible, sinuous line alone possible to the feet.
But it was there, and she traced it--never pausing never speaking, and
only looking back from time to time to assure herself that he was in
sight, until they reached the top of the dome-shaped hill.

They came out suddenly on a rocky terrace, beneath which, a mile below,
Champlain was spread out in great part of its length, from the dim bluff
of Crown Point to the far-away, cloud-like mountains of Canada.

"You can sit down a minute here," she said, as he came up.

They found seats among the low scattered bowlders, but neither spoke. It
was a moment at which to understand the jewelled imagery of the Seer of
the Apocalypse. Jasper, jacinth, chalcedony, emerald, chrysoprasus, were
suggested by the still bosom of the lake, towered round by
light-reflecting mountains. The triple tier of the Vermont shore was
bottle-green at its base, indigo in the middle height, while its summit
was a pale undulation of evanescent blue against the jade and topaz of the
twilight.

"The steamer _Empress of Erin_," the girl said, with what seemed like
abruptness, "will sail from Montreal on the twenty-eighth, and from Quebec
on the twenty-ninth. From Rimouski, at the mouth of the river St.
Lawrence, she will sail on the thirtieth, to touch nowhere else till she
reaches Ireland. You will take her at Rimouski."

There was a silence, during which he tried to absorb this startling
information.

"And from here to Rimouski?" he asked, at last.

"From here to Rimouski," she replied, with a gesture toward the lake,
"your way is there."

There was another silence, while his eyes travelled the long,
rainbow-colored lake, up to the faint line of mountains where it faded
into a mist of bluish-green and gold.

"I see the way," he said then, "but I don't see the means of taking it."

"You'll find that in good time. In the mean while you'd better take this."
From her jacket she drew a paper, which she passed to him. "That's your
ticket. You'll see," she laughed, apologetically, "that I've taken for you
what they call a suite, and I've done it for this reason. They're keeping
a lookout for you on every tramp ship from New York, on every cattle-ship
from Boston, and on every grain-ship from Montreal; but they're not
looking for you in the most expensive cabins of the most expensive liners.
They know you've no money; and if you get out of the country at all, they
expect it will be as a stoker or a stow-away They'll never think you're
driving in cabs and staying at the best hotels."

"But I shan't be," he said, simply.

"Oh yes, you will. You'll need money, of course; and I've brought it.
You'll need a good deal; so I've brought plenty."

She drew out a pocketbook and held it toward him. He looked at it,
reddening, but made no attempt to take it.

"I can't--I can't--go as far as that," he stammered, hoarsely.

"You mean," she returned, quickly, "that you hesitate to take money from a
woman. I thought you might. But it isn't from a woman; it's from a man.
It's from my father. He would have liked to do it. He would have wanted me
to do it. They keep putting it in the bank for me--just to spend--but I
never need it. What can I do with money in a place like Greenport? Here,
take it," she urged, thrusting it into his hands. "You know very well it
isn't a matter of choice, but of life or death."

With her own fingers she clasped his upon it, drawing back and coloring at
her boldness. For the first time in their weeks of intercourse she saw in
him a touch of emotion The phlegmatism by which he had hitherto concealed
his inward suffering seemed suddenly to desert him. He looked at her with
lips quivering, while his eyes filled. His weakness only nerved her to be
stronger, sending her for refuge back into the commonplace.

"They'll expect you at Rimouski, because your luggage will already have
gone on board at Montreal. Yes," she continued, in reply to his
astonishment, "I've forwarded all the trunks and boxes that came to me
from my father. I told my guardian I was sending them to be stored--and I
am, for you'll store them for me in London when you've done with them.
Here are the keys."

He made no attempt to refuse them, and she hurried on.

"I sent the trunks for two reasons; first, because there might be things
in them you could use till you get something better; and then I wanted to
prevent suspicion arising from your sailing without luggage. Every little
thing of that sort counts. The trunks have 'H.S.' painted in white letters
on them; so that you'll have no difficulty in knowing them at sight. I've
put a name with the same initials on the ticket. You'd better use it till
you feel it safe to take your own again."

"What name?" he asked, with eager curiosity, beginning to take the ticket
out of its envelope.

"Never mind now," she said, quickly. "It's just a name--any name. You can
look at it afterward. We'd better go on."

She made as though she would move, but he detained her.

"Wait a minute. So your name begins with S!"

"Like a good many others," she smiled.

"Then tell me what it is. Don't let me go away without knowing it. You
can't think what it means to me."

"I should think you'd see what it means to me."

"I don't. What harm can it do you?"

"If you don't see, I'm afraid I can't explain. To be nameless is--- how
shall I say it?--a sort of protection to me. In helping you, and taking
care of you, I've done what almost any really nice girl would have shrunk
from. There are plenty of people who would say is was wrong. And in a
way--a way I could never make you understand, unless you understand
already--it's a relief to me that you don't know who I am. And even that
isn't everything."

"Well--what else?"

"When this little episode is over"--her voice trembled, and it was not
without some blinking of the eyes that she was able to begin again--"when
this little episode is over, it will be better for us both--for you as
well as for me--to know as little about it as possible. The danger isn't
past by any means; but it's a kind of danger in which ignorance can be
made to look a good deal like innocence. I shan't know anything about you
after you've gone, and you know nothing whatever about me."

"That's what I complain of. Suppose I pull the thing off, and make a
success of myself somewhere else, how should I communicate with you
again?"

"Why should you communicate with me at all?"

"To pay you back your money, for one thing--"

"Oh, that doesn't matter."

"Perhaps it doesn't from your point of view; but it does from mine. But it
wouldn't be my only reason in any case."

Something in his voice and in his eyes warned her to rise and interrupt
him.

"I'm afraid we haven't time to talk about it now," she said, hurriedly.
"We really must be going on."

"I'm not going to talk about it now," he declared, rising in his turn. "I
said it would be a reason for my wanting to communicate with you again. I
shall want to tell you something then; though perhaps by that time you
won't want to hear it."

"Hadn't we better wait and see?"

"That's what I shall have to do; but how can I come back to you at all if
I don't know who you are?"

"I shall have to leave that to your ingenuity," she laughed, with an
attempt to treat the matter lightly. "In the mean time we must hurry on.
It's absolutely necessary that you should set out by sunset."

She glided into the invisible trail running down the lakeside slope of the
mountain, so that he was obliged to follow her. As they had climbed up,
so they descended--the girl steadily and silently in advance. The region
was dotted with farms; but she kept to the shelter of the woodland, and
before he expected it they found themselves at the water's edge. A canoe
drawn up in a cove gave him the first clear hint of her intentions.

It was a pretty little cove, enclosed by two tiny headlands, forming a
miniature landlocked bay, hidden from view of the lake beyond. Trees
leaned over it and into it, while the canoe rested on a yard-long beach of
sand.

"I see," he remarked, after she had allowed him to take his own
observations. "You want me to go over to Burlington and catch a train to
Montreal."

She shook her head, smiling, as he thought, rather tremulously.

"I'm afraid I've planned a much longer journey for you. Come and see the
preparations I've made." They stepped to the side of the canoe, so as to
look down into it. "That," she pursued, pointing to a small suit-case
forward of the middle thwart, "will enable you to look like an ordinary
traveller after you've landed. And that," she added, indicating a package
in the stern, "contains nothing more nor less than sandwiches. Those are
bottles of mineral water. The small objects are a corkscrew, a glass, a
railway timetable a cheap compass, and a cheaper watch. In addition you'll
find a map of the lake, which you can consult tomorrow morning, after
you've paddled all night through the part with which you're most
familiar."

"Where am I going?" he asked, huskily, avoiding her eyes. The nonchalance
of her tone had not deceived him, and he thought it well not to let their
glances meet.

"You'll keep to the middle of the lake and go on steadily. You'll have
all Champlain to yourself to-night, and in daylight there's no reason why
you shouldn't pass for an ordinary sportsman. All the same, you had better
rest by day, and go on again in the evening. You'll find lots of little
secluded coves where you can pull up the canoe and be quite undisturbed.
I'd do that, if I were you."

He nodded to show that he understood her.

"When you look at the map," she went on, "you'll find that I've traced a
route for you, after you get above Plattsville. You'll see that it will
take you past the little French-Canadian village of Deux Etoiles. You
can't mistake it, because there's a lighthouse, with a revolving light, on
a rock, just off the shore. You'll be in Canada then. You'd better time
yourself to go by about nightfall."

He nodded his agreement with her again, and she continued.

"About a mile above the lighthouse, and close in by the eastern shore,
just where the lake becomes very narrow, there are two little islands
lying close together. You'll take them as a landmark, because immediately
opposite them, on the mainland, there's a stretch of forest running for a
good many miles. There you can land finally. You must drag the canoe right
up into the wood, and hide it as well as you can. It's my own canoe, so
that it can lie there till it drops to pieces. Is all that quite clear to