me--her dead-white face, her great eyes,
her voiceless lips, her two little hands clutched at her breast as she
listened to the story of the great lie and his love for her.

Even when he had done, she did not move or speak. He went into his
room, closed the door, and turned on the lights. Quickly he put into
his pack what he needed. And when he was ready, he wrote on a piece of
paper:

"A thousand times I repeat, 'I love you.' Forgive me if you can. If you
cannot forgive, you may tell McDowell, and the Law will find me up at
the place of our dreams--the river's end.

--John Keith."

This last message he left on the table for Mary Josephine.

For a moment he listened at the door. Outside there was no movement, no
sound. Quietly, then, he raised the window through which Kao had come
into his room.

A moment later he stood under the light of the brilliant stars. Faintly
there came to him the sounds of the city, the sound of life, of gayety,
of laughter and of happiness, rising to him now from out of the valley.

He faced the north. Down the side of the hill and over the valley lay
the forests. And through the starlight he strode back to them once
more, back to their cloisters and their heritage, the heritage of the
hunted and the outcast.

XXIII

All through the starlit hours of that night John Keith trudged steadily
into the Northwest. For a long time his direction took him through
slashings, second-growth timber, and cleared lands; he followed rough
roads and worn trails and passed cabins that were dark and without life
in the silence of midnight. Twice a dog caught the stranger scent in
the air and howled; once he heard a man's voice, far away, raised in a
shout. Then the trails grew rougher. He came to a deep wide swamp. He
remembered that swamp, and before he plunged into it, he struck a match
to look at his compass and his watch. It took him two hours to make the
other side. He was in the deep and uncut timber then, and a sense of
relief swept over him.

The forest was again his only friend. He did not rest. His brain and
his body demanded the action of steady progress, though it was not
through fear of what lay behind him. Fear had ceased to be a
stimulating part of him; it was even dead within him. It was as if his
energy was engaged in fighting for a principle, and the principle was
his life; he was following a duty, and this duty impelled him to make
his greatest effort. He saw clearl