had laughed to herself when he took her
with such speed and care across the lake that was her prison wall. She
told him that, being afraid to encounter Saul alone, she had lain quiet,
intending to get out at Turrifs, but that when she found herself in a
lonely house with a strange man, she was frightened and ran out into the
birch woods, where her winding-sheet had been her concealment as she ran
for miles among the white trees; how she then met a squaw who helped her
to stop the coming railway train.

"We lit a fire," she said, "and the Indian woman and the children stood
in the light of it and brandished; and further on, where it was quite
dark, we had got a biggish log or two and dragged them across the track,
so when the train stopped the men came and found them there; and I went
round to the back and got on the cars when all the men were off and they
didn't come near me till morning. I thought they'd find me, and I'd got
money to pay, but I got mixed up with the people that were asleep. I
gave the squaw one of your aunt's gold pieces for helping, but"--with a
sneer--"the passengers gave her money too. I made sure she'd not tell on
me, for if she had she'd have got in jail for stopping the train."

"Puir body," said he; "like enough all she had seen o' men would make
her think, too, she had no call to say anything, though she must have
known of the hue and cry in the place."

"More like she wanted to save herself from suspicion of what she had
done," said Eliza, practically.

She still stood before him on the path, the strong firm muscles of her
frame holding her erect and still without effort of her will. The
stillness of her pose, the fashionableness of gown and hat, and the
broad display of her radiant hair, made a painful impression on Bates as
he looked, but the impression on two other men who went by just then was
apparently otherwise. They were a pair of young tourists who stared as
they passed.

"By Jove, what a magnificent girl!" said one to the other just before
they were out of hearing. There was that of consciousness in his tone
which betrayed that he thought his own accents and choice words were
well worthy her attention.

Eliza turned her back to the direction in which the strangers had gone,
thus covering the spare man to whom she was talking from their backward
glances. Bates, who was looking up at her face with his heart-hunger in
his eyes, saw a look of contempt for the passing remark flit ac