of
maturity. At the same time there was about her that suggestion of a wild
origin--that something not wholly tamed to the dictates of civilized
life--which persisted in his imagination, even if he could not verify it
in fact.

Twice in the course of the morning he heard voices. Men spoke to her
through the open doorway, and she replied. Once he distinguished her
words.

"Oh no," she called out to some one at a distance. "I'm not afraid. He
won't do me any harm. I've got Micmac with me. I often stay here all day,
but I shall go home early. Thanks," she added, in response to some further
hint. "I'd rather not have any one here. I never can paint unless I'm
quite alone."

Her tone was light, and Ford fancied that as she spoke she smiled at the
passers-by who had thought it right to warn her against himself; but when,
a few minutes later, she pushed open the door softly, the gravity that
seemed more natural to her had returned.

"Several parties of men have gone by," she whispered. "They have no
suspicion. They won't have, if you keep still. They think you have slipped
away from here, and have gone back toward the lumber camps. This is your
lunch," she continued, hastily, placing more food before him. "It will
have to be your dinner, too. It will be safer for me not to come into this
room again to-day. You must not go out into the studio till you're sure
it's dark. No noise. No light. I've put an extra rug on the couch in case
you're chilly in the night."

She spoke breathlessly, in whispers, and, having finished, slipped away.

"You're awfully good," he whispered back. "Won't you tell me your name?"

"Hush!" she warned him, as she closed the door.

He stood still in the darkness, leaving his food untasted, listening to
the soft rustle of her movements beyond the wall. Except that he heard no
more voices, the afternoon passed like the morning. At the end of what
seemed to him interminable hours he knew by acute attention that she hung
her apron on its peg, put on her hat, and took up her basket, while Micmac
rose and shook himself. Presently she closed the door of the cabin and
locked it on the outside. He fancied he could almost hear her step as she
sped over the grass and into the forest. Only then did the tension of his
nerves relax, as, dropping to his chair in the darkness, he began to eat.

IV

The two or three days that followed were much like the first. Each morning
she came early, bringing hi