n front of the lean-to was a
bed of white ashes. A kingfisher screamed past, following the limpid
turquoise edge of the shore. Beyond the mist rose a great mountain,
the filmy, ragged edges of the fog blanket sweeping in curling rifts
beneath a precipice of black sides.

The sun presently turned the mist into rose vapour; the mirror became
a greenish black, shining like polished metal. She looked out upon
this scene with a sense of restful fascination. It was the first
sunrise of its kind this woman--to whom morning meant the perfunctory
drawing of her bedroom curtains--had seen for years. It was as if she
had been transported to a new world, shutting out the other world
she had known so well--the world in which she had fluttered so
successfully, spending lavishly the money of the man who at that
moment lay next to her, worn out by calamity and fatigue. He had been
patient through years of her unreasonable extravagance--through her
selfish domination--through her tyranny. He was patient now.

Alice Thayor thought of these things as she gazed out upon the
strange, silent pond. It was the first time in her later life she had
taken time to think. Mental anguish has its sudden changes. When we
have suffered enough we seek the pleasant; to suffer requires effort.
When at last we shirk the work of being unhappy we forget our sorrow.
Alice, little by little, was forgetting hers--even in the midst of
these trying circumstances.

Soon she noticed that Margaret's blanket had slipped from her
shoulders. She leaned forward and drew it tenderly back to its place;
then she bent over and kissed the cheek of the sleeping girl.

The grip of the primaeval had laid hold of her heart!

When she again gazed across the thin rose vapour, disappearing rapidly
under the first rays of the sun, hot, scalding tears were streaming
down her face.

CHAPTER TWENTY

With the breaking of the full dawn the Clown called the old dog, rose
and stretched himself, and, noticing Alice awake, whispered:

"Good mornin',--how d'ye stand it? Kinder coolish, warn't it, 'long
'bout three o'clock?"

Alice placed her finger on her lips.

"Yes--let 'em sleep," whispered the Clown.

He rose, drew on his brogans and tiptoed noiselessly out to the ashes
of the dead fire. With the crackling of a blaze freshly built, the
rest awoke. The second day of their flight had begun.

It was rough and slow going along the shore of Bear Pond, with the
exception