ht the canoe in to the
shore.

"There!" he whispered. "You have only to cross this point to reach your
boat." He stretched out his long arm and in the silence the two shook
hands. "If you should happen to think of a way--that we might get
Winnsome--" he added, coloring.

The sudden grip of his companion's fingers made him flinch.

"We must!" said Nathaniel.

He climbed ashore and watched Neil until he had disappeared in the wild
rice. Then he turned into the woods. He looked at his watch and saw that
it was only two o'clock. He was conscious of no fatigue; he was not
conscious of hunger. To him the whole world had suddenly opened with
glorious promise and in the still depths of the forest he felt like
singing out his rejoicing. He had never stopped to ask himself what
might be the end of this passion that had overwhelmed him; he lived only
in the present, in the knowledge that Marion was not a wife, and that it
was he whom fate had chosen for her deliverance. He reasoned nothing
beyond the sweet eyes that had called upon him, that had burned their
gratitude, their hope and their despair upon his soul; nothing beyond
the thought that she would soon be free from the mysterious influence of
the Mormon king and that for days and nights after that she would be on
the same ship with him. He had emptied the pockets of the coat he had
given Neil and now he brought forth the old letter which Obadiah had
rescued from the sands. He read it over again as he sat for a few
moments in the cool of the forest and there was no trouble in his face
now. It was from a girl. He had known that girl, years ago, as Neil knew
Winnsome; in years of wandering he had almost forgotten her--until this
letter came. It had brought many memories back to him with shocking
clearness. The old folk were still in the little home under the hill;
they received his letters; they received the money he sent them each
month--but they wanted _him_. The girl wrote with merciless candor. He
had been away four years and it was time for him to return. She told
him why. She wrote what they, in their loving fear of inflicting pain,
would never have dared to say. At the end, in a postscript, she had
asked for his congratulations on her approaching marriage.

To Nathaniel this letter had been a torment. He saw the truth as he had
never seen it before--that his place was back there in Vermont, with his
father and mother; and that there was something unpleasant in think