night.... I've
marked a very good train on the time-table--a train that stops at Saint
Jean du Clou Noir at seven thirty-five ..."

A choking sensation warned her to stop, but she retained the power to
smile. The sun had set, and the slow northern night was beginning to close
in. Across the lake the mountains of Vermont were receding into deep
purple uniformity, while over the crimson of the west a veil of filmy
black was falling, as though dropped in mid-flight by the angel of the
dark. Here and there through the dead-turquoise green of the sky one could
detect the pale glimmer of a star.

"You must go now," she whispered. He began to move the canoe into the
water.

"I haven't thanked you," he began, unsteadily, holding the canoe by the
bow, "because you wouldn't let me. As a matter of fact, I don't know how
to do it--adequately. But if I live at all, my life will belong to you.
That's all I can say. My life will be a thing for you to dispose of. If
you ever have need of it--"

"I shan't have," she said, hastily, "but I'll remember what you say."

"Thanks; that's all I ask. For the present I can only hope for the chance
of making my promise good."

She said nothing in reply, and after a minute's silence he entered the
canoe. She steadied it herself to allow him to step in. It was not till he
had done so and had knelt down with the paddle in his hand that, moved by
a sudden impulse she leaned to him and kissed him. Then, releasing the
light craft, she allowed it to glide out like a swan on the tiny bay. In
three strokes of the paddle it had passed between the low, enclosing
headlands and was out of sight. When she summoned up strength to creep to
an eminence commanding the lake, it was already little more than a speck,
moving rapidly northward, over the opal-tinted waters.

VI

On finding himself alone, and relatively free, Ford's first sensation was
one of insecurity. Having lived for more than a year under orders and
observation, he had lost for the moment some of his natural confidence in
his own initiative. Though he struck resolutely up the lake he was aware
of an inner bewilderment, bordering on physical discomfort, at being his
own master. For the first half-hour he paddled mechanically, his
consciousness benumbed by the overwhelming strangeness. As far as he was
able to formulate his thought at all he felt himself to be in process of a
new birth, into a new phase of existence. In the darkening