for a long walk--she knew the trail to Thunder Peak would be
hard after the storm.

CHAPTER XV

"_Every heart vibrates to that iron string._"

And Mary's was vibrating to the iron as she plodded up the trail.

There had been much damage done by the storm. Trees were lying across
the muddy path; there were washed-out spots, making it necessary to go
out of one's way. But Mary did not notice the obstacles further than to
make a wide detour. She was thinking, thinking--patching her bits of
knowledge together with surmises provided by her vivid imagination.

Beginning with the day when old Becky, looking for Sister Angela, had
stolen into the kitchen at Ridge House and demanded "her," Mary
patiently fitted her scraps into a pattern as she patched her wonderful
quilts.

"Yes; no!" Then a stolid nodding of the head.

The sunset, bye and bye, and then the early shadows, crept up the trail
behind the lonely woman plodding along; they seemed to swallow her, and
only her quick breathing marked her going.

"I can pay--at last!" She paused and spoke the words aloud.

"Pay back!"

Through the years since her return to The Gap she had saved and saved to
return to Doris Fletcher the money advanced to buy the cabin.

Mary had never accepted it as a gift; the cabin could never be really
hers until, by the labour of her hands, she had redeemed it.

What matter that her people called her "close" and mean? She knew what
she was about, but in her slow, silent way she had learned, while she
laboured apart, to feel an undying gratitude to the woman who had made
everything possible for her.

And now she was taking her place beside them who had been her friends.
No longer were they "foreigners." Surely Mary had come to realize that
quality was not confined to places; it was in the heart and soul, and if
anything threatened it, why, then---- Here Mary drew herself up and
raised her face to the stars.

She had tears in her eyes, but her mouth drew in a hard line. She felt a
burning curiosity rising in her consciousness. What did it all mean?
What had it meant back in Ridge House long ago?

But as the burning rose higher and fiercer Mary battled with it.

It was their secret! They must keep it--even from her! So would she pay
though they might never know; _must_ never know! She would prove herself
worthy of the trust they had placed in her; she would even the score and
hold danger, whatever the danger was, back. That sh