hought of asking you to come for a talk with me."

He shook his head.

"Perhaps it's better as it is! There isn't very much to be said-not
now!" She leaned over the side of the tonneau and the clatter of traffic
enabled her to talk without taking the eavesdropping chauffeur into
their confidence. "I am not worthy of your thoughts or your confidence
after this, Boyd. What I was yesterday I am not to-day; I have told you
that. No, do not say anything! I know, now, that I was only playing with
love. I cannot name what I feel for you now; I have insulted the word
'love' too much in the past. I'm not going to say anything about it. Was
it any excuse for me that you had sunk a ship, were going to prison for
killing men, so the papers hinted? No, it was not! But I allowed myself
to make it an excuse for folly."

"You don't know what love is," he declared. In the agony of his
degradation he had no relish for softer sentiments. But he did not dare
to look up at her.

"I _did_ not know! But perhaps some day I can show you that I do now
know," she replied, humbly. "That will be the day when I can give you
the proofs against the men who have tried to ruin you. I am inside the
camp of your enemies, Boyd, and I'll give you those proofs--even against
my own father, if he is guilty. That's all! Let's wait. But while you
are working I hope it's going to give you a bit of courage to know that
I am working for you!" She patted his cheek. "Go on!" she called to her
driver. The car jerked forward and was hidden among the chariots roaring
down through the modern Babylon.

Without power for self-analysis, without being able to penetrate the
inner recesses of his own soul in that crisis, he trudged on.

A little later, almost unconscious of volition in the matter, he found
himself at a steamboat office buying a ticket. He was going back to the
obscurity of Maquoit. But he was fully conscious that he was not obeying
Julius Marston's injunction to go and hide. A deeper sentiment was
drawing him. He knew where there existed simple faith in him and
affection for him, and he craved that solace. There were humble folks in
Maquoit who would welcome him.

"I'll go back--I'll go home," he said. Once he would have smiled at the
thought that he would ever call the Hue and Cry colony "home."

XXVI ~ THE FANGS OF OLD RAZEE

A dollar a day is a Hoosier's pay,
Lowlands, lowlands, a-way, my John!
Yes, a dollar a day is a Hoo