s. It presented a blank wall to the street, broken
only by a low and narrow door with a wicket, betraying nothing. Eldris,
still hesitating, saw two carts, growing out of the gloom ahead, coming
toward her. She heard the thud of the horses' feet on the frozen ground,
the creak of wheels and straps, finally the voices of the drivers.

"Surely they will know this Nicodemus," she said, and started forward to
hail them, when a word of one carter, shouted back to the other, a few
yards to the rear, transfixed her where she stood and sent her shivering
with fright as well as cold.

"Quicker, man, or we'll get no bed this night. Hito will have something
to say to us for the hours we've been away, I'm thinking."

Swift terror seized on Eldris at the word. That there might be two Hitos
in the country she never stopped to think. These were Eudemius's men; if
they saw her, they would report to Hito at the house; she would be
searched for, overtaken, and suffer the fate of captured runaway slaves.
In a panic she fled back to the blank-walled house and beat upon the
door.

Instantly it was opened. In her excitement she had time for no surprise
at this, no feeling but relief that no time was lost. As the carters
drew abreast of the door, she slipped within and slammed it shut.

"Well!" said the one who had opened. "What are you trying to do?"

"Pardon!" Eldris stammered. "There were men passing--"

At her voice the woman looked at her keenly.

"Girl, you are frozen with cold! This is no night for you to be abroad."

"I could not help it!" said Eldris with chattering teeth. Her voice
failed her with her strength; before she had time to so much as see the
woman's face all things grew dark before her eyes. The woman caught her
as she fell.

She awoke to life again with burning pains in her face and head, and
found two women bending over her. One held a bowl, from which the other
was rubbing Eldris's face with snow. Both were young; both were tawdrily
dressed, with many strings of beads and rings on neck and fingers.
Eldris, looking at them, raised her head, and asked the first question
that came into her head.

"Where am I?"

The woman with the bowl smiled a little. She was a fair-haired creature,
with eyes of Saxon blue, with hollow cheeks and scarlet lips.

"Do you not know the house of Chloris?" she asked.

Eldris shook her head. Her eyes asked a question which her lips had not
strength to utter. The second woman spok