ity at the start he changed his
name; and as John Robinson, which was not a name to attract public
attention, he shipped as a passenger on the _Scoriac_ from London to New
York.

The _Scoriac_ was one of the great cargo boats which take a certain
number of passengers. The few necessaries which he took with him were
chosen with an eye to utility in that frozen land which he sought. For
the rest, he knew nothing, nor did he care how or whither he went. His
vague purpose was to cross the American Continent to San Francisco, and
there to take passage for the high latitudes north of the Yukon River.

* * * * *

When Stephen began to regain consciousness her first sensation was one of
numbness. She was cold in the back, and her feet did not seem to exist;
but her head was hot and pulsating as though her brain were a living
thing. Then her half-open eyes began to take in her surroundings. For
another long spell she began to wonder why all around her was green. Then
came the inevitable process of reason. Trees! It is a wood! How did I
come here? why am I lying on the ground?

All at once wakened memory opened on her its flood-gates, and overwhelmed
her with pain. With her hands pressed to her throbbing temples and her
burning face close to the ground, she began to recall what she could of
the immediate past. It all seemed like a terrible dream. By degrees her
intelligence came back to its normal strength, and all at once, as does
one suddenly wakened from sleep to the knowledge of danger, she sat up.

Somehow the sense of time elapsed made Stephen look at her watch. It was
half-past twelve. As she had come into the grove immediately after
breakfast, and as Harold had almost immediately joined her, and as the
interview between them had been but short, she must have lain on the
ground for more than three hours. She rose at once, trembling in every
limb. A new fear began to assail her; that she had been missed at home,
and that some one might have come to look for her. Up to now she had not
been able to feel the full measure of pain regarding what had passed, but
which would, she knew, come to her in the end. It was too vague as yet;
she could not realise that it had really been. But the fear of discovery
was immediate, and must be guarded against without delay. As well as she
could, she tidied herself and began to walk slowly back to the house,
hoping to gain her own room unnoticed. That her general inte