c consequences it entailed, there could be but one
conclusion: Galen Albret had not intended that she should know.
She had purposely been left in ignorance, and a politic man would
hesitate long before daring to enlighten her. The Reverend Crane,
in sheer terror, became sullen.

"A Free Trader is a man who trades in opposition to the Company,"
said he, cautiously.

"What great danger is he in?" the girl persisted with her catechism.

"None that I am aware of," replied Crane, suavely. "He is a very
ill-balanced and excitable young man."

Virginia's quick instincts recognized again the same barrier which,
with the people, with Wishkobun, with her father, had shut her so
effectively from the truth. Her power of femininity and position
had to give way before the man's fear for himself and of Galen
Albret's unexpressed wish. She asked a few more questions,
received a few more evasive replies, and left the little clergyman
to recover as best he might from a very trying evening.

Out in the night the girl hesitated in two minds as to what to do
next. She was excited, and resolved to finish the affair, but she
could not bring her courage to the point of questioning her father.
That the stranger was in antagonism to the Company, that he
believed himself to be in danger on that account, that he wanted
succor, she saw clearly enough. But the whole affair was vague,
disquieting. She wanted to see it plainly, know its reasons. And
beneath her excitement she recognized, with a catch of the breath,
that she was afraid for him. She had not time now to ask herself
what it might mean; she only realized the presence of the fact.

She turned instinctively in the direction of Doctor Cockburn's
house. Mrs. Cockburn was a plain little middle-aged woman with
parted gray hair and sweet, faded eyes. In the life of the place
she was a nonentity, and her tastes were homely and commonplace,
but Virginia liked her.

She proved to be at home, the Doctor still at his dispensary, which
was well. Virginia entered a small log room, passed through it
immediately to a larger papered room, and sat down in a musty red
armchair. The building was one of the old regime, which meant that
its floor was of wide and rather uneven painted boards, its ceiling
low, its windows small, and its general lines of an irregular and
sagging rule-of-thumb tendency. The white wall-paper evidently
concealed squared logs. The present inhabitants, being pos