to rest upon the dark, smooth ground
in a belt of pines, and looked between rows of stately columns to where,
in the distance, the arcade was closed by a broken and confused glory of
crimson oak and yellow maple. Landless told her that it was like gazing
at a rose window down the long nave of a cathedral.

"I have never seen a cathedral," she said; "I have dreamed of them,
though, of your Milton's 'dim religious light,' and of the rolling
music."

"I have seen many," he answered. "But none of them are to me what the
abbey at Westminster is. If you should ever see it--"

Something in her face stopped him; there was a silence, and then he said
quietly:--

"When you shall see it, is perhaps better, madam?"

"Yes," she answered, gazing before her with wide fixed eyes.

He did not finish his sentence, and neither spoke again until they had
left the pines and were forcing their way through the tall grass and
reeds of a wide savannah. They came to a small, clear stream, dotted
with wild fowl and mirroring the pale blue sky, and he lifted her in his
arms as was his wont and bore her through the shallow water. As he set
her gently down upon the other side, she said in a low voice, "I thought
you knew. Had it not been for that night, that night which sets us here,
you and me,--I should be now in London, at Whitehall, at some masque or
pageant perhaps. I should be all clad in brocade and jewels, not like
this--" She touched her ragged gown as she spoke, then burst into
strange laughter. "But God disposes! And you--"

"I should be in a place which is never mentioned at Court, madam," said
Landless grimly. "The grave, to wit. Unless indeed his Excellency
proposed hanging me in chains."

She cried out as though she had been struck. "Don't!" she said
passionately. "Don't speak to me so! I will not bear it!" and ran past
him into the woods beyond the savannah.

When he came up with her he found her lying on a mossy bank with her
face hidden.

"Madam," he said, kneeling beside her, "forgive me."

She lifted a colorless face from her hands. "How far are we from the
Settlements?" she demanded.

"I do not know, madam. Some twenty leagues, probably, from the frontier
posts."

"How far from the friendly tribes?"

"Something less than that distance."

"Then when we reach them, sir," she said imperiously, "you are to leave
me with them at one of the villages above the falls."

"To leave you there!"

"Yes. You will tell t